The Pitters' Place

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/w ... tions.html

Trump just signed a ban on all foreign aid for organisations that offer abortion counselling or access to abortion services. As the article notes, this is practically all of them.
this means massive closures of healthcare organisations in foreign countries due to lack of funds

resulting in lots of deaths of adults
and, ironically, a skyrocketing abortion rate, because as the article points out, most of them are the primary providers of contraceptives and family planning services in developing countries, both of which have been instrumental in lowering the abortion rate.

I don't know how this was supposed to solve anything, including the lives of unborn children they claim to be concerned about.

Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, told reporters that Mr. Trump had “made it very clear that he's a pro-life president."

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

So as A_Cure_For_Gravity pointed out on Facebook, every Republican President since Reagan has started his term by reinstating this same thing, and every Democratic president since then has started his term by putting a stop to it.

Not saying that to defend the action, just to say that this isn't some crazy Trump thing.

But yes, it seems almost obvious that this move will increase abortion rates.

Apparently executive orders don't mean anything if they can just go back and forth like that.

They mean something for the duration of the current president's term. But it's nothing like an actual law.

It'd be nice if articles like these provided resources for those who wanted to make donations or something.

@Gendo - That's good to know, at least.

Found this: "A 2003 analysis found that the rule leads to unsafe abortions, which are the second-leading cause of death for women of reproductive age in Ethiopia and account for more than 40 percent of the maternal mortality rate in Kenya. Peru has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Latin America, in part because of its high rate of clandestine abortions. ... The gag rule would deny US funding to any international organization that mentions abortion as an option for women seeking help with an unwanted pregnancy—even if that organization largely provides contraception or more general reproductive health care. ... Marie Stopes International, one of USAID's biggest family planning partners, estimates that the global gag rule will lead to an additional 2.2 million abortions worldwide."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... l-gag-rule

I think they're one of the places that you can donate to, although they'd be among those banned from providing services, which makes donations meaningless in this context. I'm not sure if there are groups fighting against the ban that could be supported.

This ban will likely also increase the number of late-term abortions, whereby there's a higher likelihood of the fetus being conscious and/or able to experience pain, including some almost guaranteed infanticide, vs when they're a small clump of unthinking cells and it's no more murder than mixing a jar of egg and sperm together and then flushing it down the loo. I don't know how anyone thought this was a good idea at all, especially not if they are concerned about fetal suffering and want to reduce abortion.

Someone else mentioned that a lot of women seeking abortion in those places have been raped and can barely support themselves, let alone a child, which makes it worse. They're almost definitely going to abort either way, and it's best they don't die while doing so.

I don't know how effective the ban is, though - if it's been done before as you say, perhaps organisations have found ways of getting around it.

Anakin McFly wrote: I think they're one of the places that you can donate to, although they'd be among those banned from providing services, which makes donations meaningless in this context. I'm not sure if there are groups fighting against the ban that could be supported.

[...]

I don't know how effective the ban is, though - if it's been done before as you say, perhaps organisations have found ways of getting around it.

Um, the ban is on the US sending money to organizations that provide abortions. No organizations are being banned from performing abortions. I mean, I guess some of those organizations might choose to stop providing abortions in order to continue to get funding? But that seems unlikely. The outcome of this would be that those organizations don't have as much money, not that they won't provide abortions.

Um, the ban is on the US sending money to organizations that provide abortions. No organizations are being banned from performing abortions.

I phrased that badly, sorry. By 'services' I meant information about abortion.

The ban includes organisations that merely mention abortion as an option, which is likely where most of those women know where to go in the first place. So by 'getting around it' I meant that they might find other ways to provide that information without it coming directly from that organistation, such as by setting up separate groups that are solely for informational purposes.

The Netherlands just set up a fund in response to this though: http://time.com/4646264/the-netherlands ... en-health/

EDIT: Oh, looks like there are exceptions: "Hypothetically, health care providers are allowed to talk to patients about abortion in the event of rape, incest, or life-threatening complications, but it's unclear exactly how such exceptions would work once a compliant NGO has eradicated all abortion-related resources from its programming." http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/20 ... ublic.html

So that's good to hear, although there's still the reduced ability to provide birth control if organisations lose funding, and that's still going to raise the unwanted pregnancy rate.