On 5th November 2024 it was announced that Donald Trump would again become US president. At the time we wrote a piece about the likely repercussions of this for those working on global sexual and reproductive health and rights. After all, every Republican president since 1984 has introduced the Mexico City Policy, or ‘global gag rule’, which restricts funding for organisations which support or provide abortion. And Trump has already shown us in a myriad of ways that he is no supporter of women’s rights and reproductive freedoms.
Back in November, we also sent out an online survey to all our grantee partners, to ask them if they thought this would impact their work, and if so how. In this post, we share some of their responses.
The majority of SAAF grantee partners who responded to the survey told us that they thought Trump’s presidency would impact their work.
And, unsurprisingly, not in a positive way. We received responses from organisations across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and only one respondent answered ‘no’ when asked if they thought the new US presidency would have an impact on their work.
Organisations shared their perspectives on how they felt their work could be made more difficult:
- Justification of anti-rights policies:
“In {our country}, authorities tend to refer to global powers like US, France, Britain and Germany to justify policy decisions that support their own political and personal interests. Our authorities tend to reject demands for the implementation of human rights… they are quick to point to policy decisions from these global powers to justify their policy stance.” CENTRAL AFRICA
- Increased abortion stigma:
“Abortion stigma will increase. The government will strengthen their arguments against abortion citing that America, a developed country, is also saying no to abortion.” EAST AFRICA
- Emboldened anti-choice movement:
“According to our observation, there were initially no direct pro-life activities in {our country}, but in the past month, a pro-life group organized a mass protest against the Safe Abortion policy. They were also demonstrating against same-sex marriage, and the legal recognition of the LGBT+ community. We think there is the possibility of more funding for these groups which might directly affect the awareness work that we have been doing in the communities.” SOUTH ASIA
- Negative impact on human rights advocacy:
“The gag rule takes us back decades; engaging in national processes becomes increasingly challenging and occupying regional and global spaces like conferences becomes challenging without funding.” SOUTH ASIA
- Inability to provide safe abortion care:
“We could stop receiving funding from some organizations that allow us to purchase medications and provide abortion services at the community level, which would make our sustainability as an organization more complicated. This could mean that we would not be able to meet the growing demand we have had in recent years, leaving people without the possibility of safe services which could again increase unsafe abortions.” CENTRAL AMERICA
Organisations are not yet sure how this change will affect their funding.
Many respondents were worried about a significant reduction in their funding. Some, which don’t receive US funding, were nevertheless concerned about increased competition for funds which support abortion work.
“At present we have no funding that will be affected by this law, but we are concerned about the ripple effect that it will surely generate in all organizations working with SRHR… We have to compete for one of the few funds available for this work.” SOUTH AMERICA
“We estimate a 75% reduction in funding for our work.” EAST AFRICA
“More than 60% of our financial support originates from foreign donors, primarily those funded by the US…This potential loss will severely undermine our capacity to provide safe abortion care, advocacy, and related services to vulnerable women and girls”. WEST AFRICA
Abortion activists are resourceful and resilient, but a Trump presidency undoubtedly has a negative impact on their work.
It’s extremely likely that one of the first things Donald Trump will do when he takes office is block US aid for organisations working on, or supporting, abortion rights. The devastating impact previous iterations of the policy have had on global health (not just abortion care) has already been well documented.
It’s heartbreaking that across the Global South, as well as the US, people’s lives will be negatively impacted by abortion restrictions, removal of funding and increased stigma.
We intend to keep the conversation going with our grantee partners and provide as much support and sharing of information as possible. In the meantime, we are pleased to be able to continue to directly fund brave and life-saving work on abortion.
“I have every confidence that our current donors will not give up, and in fact it’s a big challenge that we’re facing and we have to take it up. We’re committed to helping women and girls who need safe abortion in our communities.” WEST AFRICA
By Laura Hurley, Communications Lead at the Safe Abortion Action Fund (SAAF).