Louise Slaughter: “I rise today in coalition with my colleagues to express my deep concern and opposition to President Bush's recent…”

“I rise today in coalition with my colleagues to express my deep concern and opposition to President Bush's recent declaration to discontinue the aid in family planning and to reinstate the global gag rule. In essence, this global gag rule restricts foreign, nongovernmental organizations that accept international family planning funds from using their own non-U.S. money to provide legal abortion services or to lobby their own governments for changes in the abortion laws. While this gag rule is simply bad policy, its consequences are extremely severe, affecting the health of women and families in some of the poorest and neediest countries under some of the direst of circumstances. These consequences have not been fully or accurately disclosed to the American people. At its best, this global gag rule will serve to undermine a key priority of United States foreign policy, to promote Democratic values worldwide. At its worst, it will block access to contraceptives, increase the incidents of illegal abortion and lead to higher maternal mortality rates. Instead of presenting these facts to the American people, President Bush provided the press with an attractive sound bite explaining his recent decision: Quote, I am opposed to American taxpayer dollars being used to pay for abortions overseas, end quote. The statement is grossly inaccurate. As we know, the global gag rule is totally unrelated to the issue of taxpayers' funds being used for abortions.”