He keeps changing his tune, and it’s pretty obvious that Mitt doesn’t actually care about abortion — he’ll just do whatever the GOP tells him to. And that’s exactly why we should be worried. Take, for example, his pledge to reinstate the Global Gag Rule:
In the same interview in which Romney claimed abortion wasn’t on his legislative agenda, he also pledged to reinstate the “global gag rule”, a policy that cuts off US funding to any organization abroad that so much as mentions abortion as an option for women, provides abortions with its own non-US dollars or advocates for abortion rights. Laws preventing US money from paying for abortions abroad have been on the books since the 1970s; the gag rule is particularly pernicious because it goes significantly further than that and cuts funding to groups that are providing an array of crucial reproductive medical services in places where death from childbirth is routine. The gag rule was put in place by President Reagan, rescinded by Democratic presidents including Barack Obama and put back into place by Republican ones.
When the gag rule was in effect under George W Bush, global health leaders warned that it was contributing to “shockingly high” rates of death and disability in developing nations. Clinics that provided necessary maternal healthcare to some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable women were shut down. And the gag rule impeded access to healthcare services like pre-natal and well-baby care, children’s healthcare, HIV prevention and treatment, and even malaria services. It was a global health disaster, and it’s apparently one of the top abortion-related issues on Romney’s agenda.
Could you link to the article from which this is taken? Thanks!
Whoops sorry! Fixed.
Well said. (He’s the wrong choice on every count, really!)
The thing that terrifies me most as an Australian observing US politics is how deeply impactful it is on the lives of people around the globe, especially in the Global South. And when I, with internet access and fluent English have what is still absolutely minimal ability to influence the results of US election I just get completely infuriated for those people whose actual physical lives are at the mercy of an electorate of whom many would fail at even locating their country on a map.
This, pretty much. The US terrifies me. I know and love many US people, but I…uh… well. I’ve got reasons to be wary of British Empire v.2.0, you know.
Is there any way you might give me a lift out of here, puhhhhleeeease?
D: I wish….
Global gag rule. WOW. There is NO reason to have that middle state, whatever you believe about abortion.
This is a scandal. American citizens’ freedom of speech is protected by the Bill of Rights, but our foreign aid effectively removes freedom of speech for its recipients, and in one area only: the one which impacts women’s political activism and mobility for 21 years to life.
Furthermore, the same media who blather on and on about Constitutionality and censorship of the Rat Wing are completely, conspicuously silent about this derailment of the First Amendment at the expense of already-tyrannized women.
Do you really expect anyone to spend too much effort defending the Bill of Rights when both parties have spent the last 40 years doing their level best to excise the parts that offend the sensibilities of their bases? Even the big constitutional rights advocacy groups are so enmeshed with their respective vile teams that they virtually never work together. Everyone seems perfectly happy to ride their pet issue and let everyone else burn without realizing that the more power you give the government to violate the basic rights of it’s citizens the more power it has to violate…the basic rights of it’s citizens.
Unfortunately there are only 2 choices and not everyone is going to make abortion issues her deciding factor.
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