Trump's abortion gag rule hurts AIDS fight, advocates say

The Trump administration's deployment of the so-called global gag rule, which prevents foreign aid from going to groups that provide abortion services, is already detrimental to the AIDS epidemic's fighting efforts, advocates and researchers said Friday.

The new policy also leads to closures of clinics that provide extensive health services, including AIDS drugs, at the International AIDS Conference. And it could undo years of efforts to build health systems in developing countries.

"I think there is a real potential for an increase in HIV infections," said Brian Honermann, Deputy Director of Public Policy at AmfAR. Research

"The implementation of this policy disrupts the services," Honermann told NBC News.

"Often what we see is that some clinics are closing."

officially called Protecting Life in the Global Health Assistance Policy, prohibits giving US federal funds to any foreign organization that performs abortions or, in many cases, even mentions them as an option for women. Groups receiving US funding must commit to not using money from any source to provide abortions.

The groups will therefore have to give up any American funding if they want to maintain abortion in all services. to provide, or if they want to support, other groups that do it.

The rule has been lifted and re-established by various jurisdictions for over 30 years. Former President Barack Obama raised him with one of his first executive orders.

Under former President George W. Bush, the rule applied to family planning groups. But Donald Trump's 2017 Legislative Decree extends it to all US federal aid to health.

World health organizations warned that this would disrupt decades of efforts to combat the epidemic of the human immunodeficiency virus.

And now they say that they have evidence that he

HIV infects nearly 37 million people worldwide, according to the UN organization UNAIDS. Increased efforts, often led by the United States, mean that nearly 22 million people are now receiving anti-HIV drugs that can keep them healthy and can prevent transmission of the virus.

But they need clinics

And because the money to fight AIDS has been incorporated into programs put in place to provide health care in general to people who could not afford it. Having it before, this could cause a lot more damage. NGOs (non-governmental organizations) with 10 to 15 service providers now need to reduce to five or three, "said Tikhala Itaye, who chairs the global women's rights group SheDecides.

Women are particularly affected because in most countries most affected by HIV, the virus is transmitted badually. "In sub-Saharan Africa, three out of four new infections affect girls aged 15 to 19, and young women aged 15 to 24 are twice as likely to live with HIV as men," he said. UNAIDS in a statement.

Thus, HIV prevention work often begins with the provision of health care generally to women. "In Kenya, for example, the Center for Adolescent Health was in a situation where they were supporting 15,000 adolescent girls living with HIV," Itaye said at a press conference at the AIDS meeting. They had to reduce that … to less than 10,000, "she said.

" Now we are dealing with an increase in unsafe abortions. They use glbad or they use hot oil or they use sticks, "she adds.

She calls the policy" a violation of the fundamental reproductive health rights of every woman and every girl . "

Kates of the Kaiser Family Foundation said that his team was trying to badyze how many organizations could be affected by the policy.

This affects the PEPFAR, the emergency plan of the President for the fight against AIDS, who not only "Our badysis indicated that the expanded policy will probably affect hundreds of NGOs," said Kates, for example, she said, 264 groups receive of money directly from PEPFAR and would be affected, just like the hundreds of other indirectly funded organizations.

In some cases, Honermann said, health or aid organizations will Unable to accept Chloë Cooney from Planned Parenthood Global and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said at the press conference: "We should not disqualify anyone."

… who can do part of the answer, "added Mr. Coone there. "We need everyone who can do a good job to be there."

Cooney said that the real effects of politics may not be seen for years.

"Some of the greatest misdeeds of the gag rule will not be measurable about a large population or a national level until it is too late to reverse the trend, "said Cooney.

"The global gag rule is that it conceals the wrongness it creates."

Groups likely to be affected According to Mr. Honermann, funding restrictions do not want to talk openly possible effects because they fear to make them targets for larger funding cuts, Honermann said. the press conference.