{"id":241513,"date":"2021-03-13T15:30:33","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T21:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=241513"},"modified":"2021-03-11T17:05:34","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T23:05:34","slug":"abortion-activists-dubious-claims-promote-funding-overseas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-activists-dubious-claims-promote-funding-overseas\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion activists make dubious claims to promote funding abortion overseas"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/abortion-activists-offer-dubious-claims-to-attack-helms-amendment\/\">WASHINGTON D.C., C-Fam<\/a>) Since the Democrats took control of the U.S. Congress and presidency, abortion advocates have taken aim at pro-life laws, including the Helms Amendment, which prohibits U.S. family planning aid from being used to promote or provide abortions overseas. They have claimed that repealing the Helms Amendment would improve maternal health in foreign countries and even advance racial justice.<\/p>\n<p>The Guttmacher Institute recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.guttmacher.org\/article\/2021\/02\/case-ending-global-gag-rule-and-helms-amendment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">claimed<\/a> that repealing Helms would result in 19 million fewer \u201cunsafe\u201d abortions per year and reduce maternal deaths due to \u201cunsafe\u201d abortions.\u00a0 This is based on a set of 33 countries where the U.S. already supports family planning programs and in which abortion is legal under at least some grounds. It also assumes that \u201cU.S. support helped ensure that all abortions were provided safely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Guttmacher presumes that the only way to reduce \u201cunsafe\u201d abortions is to replace them with \u201csafe\u201d ones, and does not specify whether the abortions the U.S. would ensure were performed \u201csafely\u201d includes only those that are legal.\u00a0 Many countries that receive assistance from the U.S. prohibit abortion in all but extreme cases, such as where the life of the mother is at stake or where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.\u00a0In such places, the vast majority of abortions currently occurring \u201cunsafely\u201d are already illegal, and the U.S. could not assist in making them \u201csafe\u201d without violating the sovereign laws of that country.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. taxpayer funds already support maternal health and broader health programs in developing countries, including medical treatment for women suffering from complications from abortion, which is always legal to provide.\u00a0 The U.S. also assists countries in providing education and access to financial services for women overseas, including by the previous Trump administration\u2019s initiative promoting women\u2019s economic empowerment.\u00a0 These efforts, while not explicitly pro-life, can help provide pregnant women with more options and enable them to seek alternatives to abortion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-supporters-congress-taxpayers-overseas\/\">Abortion supporters in Congress want to force American taxpayers to fund abortion overseas<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Helms Amendment was added to the U.S. foreign assistance law in 1973, the same year when the <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> Supreme Court decision made abortion on demand the law of the land across the U.S.\u00a0 While <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/definitions\/what-is-the-real-purpose-of-the-helms-amendment-to-the-foreign-assistance-act\/\">offering<\/a> his amendment in Congress, Senator Jesse Helms warned against \u201cthe United States becom[ing] the world\u2019s largest exporter of death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abortion advocates have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/us-could-prevent-19-million-unsafe-abortions-abroad-if-helms-amendment-is-repealed_n_603559c0c5b62bef36790953\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tried<\/a> to label the Helms Amendment as racist \u201cbecause it largely affects developing countries in Africa.\u201d However, this could just as easily apply to any legal restriction or requirement placed on U.S. foreign assistance, which is directed toward countries with the greatest need, many of which are in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The Guttmacher Institute expressed hopes that if the Helms Amendment were repealed, its impact could be even greater \u201cif additional countries liberalize abortion laws.\u201d This would undoubtedly be assisted by U.S. funding going to abortion-providing organizations in those countries, which could then use their presence and resources to lobby lawmakers in capitals.\u00a0 President Joe Biden\u2019s decision to rescind the Mexico City Policy blocking U.S. aid funding to those organizations will likewise result in greater pressure on countries with pro-life laws.<\/p>\n<p>The Helms Amendment has been law for decades, and some members of the Senate have proposed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/117th-congress\/senate-bill\/239\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bill<\/a> that would codify it as a stand-alone law, rather than a rider on the foreign assistance law.\u00a0 However, given the current makeup of Congress, this bill has little chance of passing in the immediate future.<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note: Rebecca G. Oas, Ph.D.\u00a0<\/em><i>writes for C-Fam. <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/abortion-activists-offer-dubious-claims-to-attack-helms-amendment\/\">This article<\/a> first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-Fam (Center for Family &amp; Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/\"><i>https:\/\/c-fam.org\/<\/i><\/a><i>). This article appears with permission.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/\">\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(WASHINGTON D.C., C-Fam) Since the Democrats took control of the U.S. Congress and presidency, abortion advocates have taken aim at pro-life laws, including the Helms Amendment, which prohibits U.S. family planning aid from being used to promote or provide abortions overseas. They have claimed that repealing the Helms Amendment would improve maternal health in foreign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":715,"featured_media":218473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Abortion activists make dubious claims to promote funding abortion overseas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While offering his amendment in Congress, Senator Jesse Helms warned against \u201cthe United States becom[ing] the world\u2019s largest exporter of death.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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