President Trump signed an order Friday reinstating a policy that requires foreign nongovernmental agencies to certify that they don’t provide or promote abortion if they receive U.S. federal funds for family planning assistance.
The position, sometimes called the Mexico City Policy and referred to by opponents as the “global gag rule,” was first introduced more than 40 years ago. Every Republican president has put it in effect, and every Democrat has rescinded it.
Eight years ago, the first Trump administration not only brought back the prohibition but also broadened it to include organizations that comply with the rules but give money to others that don’t.
Advocates say the policy, coupled with a law that bars U.S. money from paying for abortion around the globe, has a major impact on abortion availability worldwide — and also blocks aid money from flowing to health organizations for other purposes. They say it hurts reproductive and maternal health care in developing nations by cutting funds to groups that offer critical non-abortion related services, including birth control, nutritional support for infants and HIV/AIDS treatment.
Trump also signed an executive order Friday requiring the enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, which restricts government funding for most abortions.
The amendment was already the law of the land under the Biden administration, but the Trump administration argued “the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy.”
March for Life message
The executive actions came on the same day as the annual March for Life in Washington. In the video address to the crowd, Mr. Trump vowed “we will again stand proudly for families and for life” in his second term and once again boasted about nominating three Supreme Court justices who helped strike down Roe v. Wade.
“I was so proud to be a participant,” he said.
Crowds also cheered Mr. Trump’s decision to pardon a group of anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.
His administration also acted Friday to direct federal prosecutors to scale back on enforcement of a federal law known as the FACE Act, for Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances. The 1994 law makes it illegal to harm, threaten or interfere with a person obtaining or providing reproductive health services, or to damage a facility where those services are provided.
A Department Justice memo, obtained by CBS News, instructs prosecutors to enforce the law only in “extraordinary circumstances” or in instances when death, wherein extreme bodily harm or significant property damage result. Most other cases will be left to state or local law enforcement.
Vice President JD Vance addressed the March for Life rally and said the president “delivered on his promise of ending Roe,” appointed hundreds of anti-abortion judges and pardoned anti-abortion activists he says were “unjustly imprisoned.”
“Our country faces the return of the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes,” Vance said.
Nicole Sganga and
contributed to this report.
