Dutch government meets Trump's abortion 'gag rule' with a fund of its own

The Dutch government says it will set up a fund to help families worldwide after President Trump reinstated a rule that bars international groups that perform or promote abortions from receiving US government funding.

|
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
President Donald Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence (l.) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus (r.), looks up while signing an executive order on the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on January 23, 2017.

On Monday, President Trump reinstated a ban on federal funding to all overseas aid organizations that provide information or assistance to women seeking abortions.

Using US taxpayer dollars to fund abortions overseas has been illegal since 1976, under a law known as the Helms Amendment. A separate policy dating to 1984, known as the Mexico City Policy, bans funding of groups that “promote” abortion – for instance, by informing women where they can receive an abortion or providing post-abortion care.

Many aid organizations consider these practices to be inseparable from a larger regimen of family planning. The US government has been the largest single donor to these programs, giving $585 million in bilateral family-planning aid, and an additional $28 million to the United Nations Population Fund, in 2013. Family-planning advocates fear that Trump’s decision will lead to these funds getting cut.

The Dutch government says it doesn’t want to let that happen. On Wednesday, Lilianne Ploumen, the Netherlands’ international development minister, announced plans to create an international abortion fund to offset a decline in US aid.

"This decision has far-reaching consequences above all for the women it affects, who should be able to decide for themselves if they want a child, but also for their husbands and children and for society as a whole," Ms. Ploumen said.

Despite its small size, the Netherlands has been a major supporter of global reproductive health care, donating more than any other country except the United States or Britain to family-planning efforts in 2013.

Ploumen sees a vital role for the country moving forward. “Last year alone Dutch support for women’s organisations helped to prevent an estimated six million unwanted pregnancies and half a million abortions,” Dutch News quoted her as saying. “The decision by the United States threatens to undermine these results. We mustn’t let that happen.”

Even so, the Dutch government recognizes that it can’t fill the massive funding gap left by the US on its own. Ploumen plans to meet with her counterparts from other European countries and Latin America to discuss contributions to the effort. She also described it as “a broad-based fund that governments, companies and civil society organizations can donate to."

This fund is poised to capture an international surge in concern for women’s reproductive health. This past Sunday, an estimated 4,876,700 marchers participated in 673 Women’s Marches around the world. One of the March’s Unity Principles, “Reproductive Freedom,” states, “We do not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on our ability to access quality reproductive healthcare services...This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people.”

Donations from groups and governments that share this viewpoint may not only keep family-planning programs operational but also provide a more reliable stream of income than US government funding. On Tuesday, the Monitor’s Gretel Kaufman described the Mexico City Policy as a “game of political tennis,” implemented by Republicans and rescinded by Democrats. “Reinstating the rule is all but mandatory for a Republican president who wishes to maintain credibility with the pro-life community,” she noted.

Trump’s decision on Tuesday continues the match and leaves family-planning groups in search of other funding sources. This time, they could be turning to the Netherlands.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Dutch government meets Trump's abortion 'gag rule' with a fund of its own
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2017/0125/Dutch-government-meets-Trump-s-abortion-gag-rule-with-a-fund-of-its-own
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe