President Trump on Friday reinstated a long-standing Republican anti-abortion policy known as the “Mexico City Rule.” This prohibits federal funds from going to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortions.
The move comes as he spoke to thousands of abortion opponents in Washington on Friday, Roev in 1973. After commemorating the 52nd anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Wade, which created a national right to abortion, the court overturned it in 2022.
Federal law already prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to support abortion services overseas. But in 1984, President Ronald Reagan went a step further, blocking foreign aid to nongovernmental organizations that discuss abortion as part of family planning services, or advocating for abortion rights. advocated for abortion rights even when not using American tax dollars.
In the 40 years since then, this policy has had a history of SEESAW. Democratic presidents, including Joseph R. Biden Jr., canceled it and Republicans reinstated it. It has been in effect for 21 of the last 40 years.
It's no surprise that Trump reinstated the ban. When he ran for president in 2016, he won the support of Christian conservatives by taking a strong anti-abortion stance and pledging to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court who would overturn the ROE. In the two and a half years since Roe was overturned, abortion has become a more complex issue for Republicans, and Trump has not made it a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign.
But Mr. Trump should still lean toward the right wing of the party, especially since his pick for health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a confusing record on abortion. During a visit with senators on Capitol Hill last month, Mr. Kennedy pledged that Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, would support restoring the policy as part of a broader anti-abortion agenda.
“He has promised me that he will restore President Trump’s pro-life policies at HHS,” Hawley wrote on social media, using his initials for the Department of Health and Human Services. “That includes reinstating the Mexico City policy and ending taxpayer funding for domestic abortions.”
In April 2023, when he was running for president, Kennedy said he supported a federal ban in the first trimester of pregnancy, but then quickly backtracked. His campaign released a statement saying Kennedy's “position on abortion has always been that it is a woman's right to choose,” adding that “he does not support laws that ban abortion.” .
The following year, he posted a lengthy message on social media outlining his views. “I support the emerging consensus that abortion should be unlimited until a certain point,” he wrote. “We believe that point is when the baby is viable outside the womb.”
Reproductive rights advocates say Mexico City's policies will have a devastating impact on women abroad, increasing the number of unintended pregnancies, cutting back on much-needed family planning programs and sometimes causing women to seek unsafe abortions. It is said to lead like this. .
The last time Trump reinstated the policy, when he first took office in 2017, he expanded it by directing the State Department to identify additional organizations that could fall under the ban. did. Two years later, in 2019, Trump further expanded the policy to block federal funding from foreign groups that give money to other foreign groups that perform abortions.