The Global Gag Rule restricts foreign organisations from supporting abortion services if they receive US funding. Last week it was reinstated by the new Republican administration, impacting human rights, particularly for vulnerable communities.
On Friday, the Trump administration reinstated the Global Gag Rule, a harmful and regressive policy that restricts US foreign assistance to organisations providing, counselling, or advocating for legal abortion services—regardless of local laws or non-US funding sources.
This action represents a significant setback for global health, gender equality and human rights, particularly for vulnerable communities who already face systemic barriers to accessing critical health care. It blocked federal funding and forced foreign non-governmental organisations NGOs to stop providing abortion services, counselling, referrals, or advocating to decriminalise abortion, even when they used their own money.
This put organisations in a position where they either lost existing funding for not complying with the policy or were able to keep US funding but forced to stop providing comprehensive reproductive health care.
Since its introduction, every Democratic president has repealed the Global Gag Rule, and every Republican president has reinstated it. Even after previous administrations lifted the policy, the fear of future reinstatement and the disruption of services have created lasting uncertainty and delay in resuming vital health programmes.
