70 Organizations Are Urging the President to Fund Abortion Care Abroad

[niyad]

70 Organizations Are Urging the President to Fund Abortion Care Abroad


The Feminist Majority and over 70 other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) released a letter to President Obama yesterday that calls on him to reinterpret the Helms Amendment and meet with the people running women’s health programs in Africa on an upcoming trip to the continent.




Currently, the Helms Amendment is wrongly interpreted as an all-out ban on abortion funding. Because of this interpretation, organizations cannot use foreign assistance to fund abortion as a method of family planning – and abortion in the case of rape, life endangerment, and incest is also prohibited. The Obama administration has the power to reinterpret the extremely broad amendment, but has not since he took office. “Ultimately we want to see the Helms Amendment repealed, but that would take an act of Congress,” said Center for Health and Gender Equity President Serra Sippel. “We don’t need an act of Congress to implement the Helms Amendment correctly. This is something the President can do now.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 21.6 million women experience an unsafe abortion worldwide each year. Deaths due to unsafe abortions are close to 13 percent of all maternal deaths.

“Abortions in the cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment should not be considered abortions ‘as a method of family planning’ under any reasonable definition,” they= coalition stated in their letter to the President. “This issue is urgent because women are dying. Unsafe abortion is a key driver of maternal mortality, and Kenya and Ethiopia are among the 24 USAID priority countries where 70 percent of maternal deaths worldwide occur.”

Faith leaders are also on board. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) stated they want “swift executive action” on the Helms Amendment, saying further that it is too strict of an interpretation. They call on Obama to provide compassionate care overseas. “We are here today to not only say that this interpretation is wrong,” Reverend Harry Knox, president of the RCRC, said in a press conference earlier this summer, “it is morally bankrupt.”

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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/07/23/70-organizations-are-urging-the-president-to-fund-abortion-care-abroad/

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