Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Wednesday reintroduced a bill which would permanently repeal a policy that restricts sending federal foreign aid to groups providing abortion services after President Trump reinstated it last week.
The lawmakers’ move comes just days after Trump issued an executive order reinstating the policy, known as the Mexico City Policy or as the ‘global gag rule’ by opponents. The policy requires foreign nongovernmental organizations to certify that they do not use any funding sources to pay for performing, counseling, or providing information on abortions abroad as a condition for receiving U.S. funding.
“The Global Gag Rule has had a detrimental effect on the ability of women around the world to access important health services and reproductive care,” Shaheen said in a statement.
“We have made great strides towards ending preventable maternal and child deaths, reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV and combating gender-based violence,” she continued. “The Global Gag Rule puts that progress at risk.”
The bill, titled the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act, has been introduced several times in Congress by Murkowski and Shaheen. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also previously sponsored the measure.
Murkwoski said the legislation, which is supported by mostly Democratic senators, “ensures that healthcare providers have continued stability to provide critical, often life-saving, care to women and girls everywhere.”
The Mexico City Policy was first implemented during the second Reagan administration. The legislation has been rescinded by every Democratic president and reinstated by every Republican president since then.
Trump previously restored the policy four days into his first term before President Biden rescinded it again a week into his own.
Trump’s latest order, issued last Friday, was part of a pair of actions to limit U.S. government funding for abortions, scaling back some of the Biden administration’s efforts to increase access to the procedure.
