1984, Mexico City. Ronald Reagan has just introduced a new policy that will come to be known as the Mexico City Policy or as critics will name it: the global gag rule. 

Under this new policy, any facility that offers abortion services or family planning counseling that presents abortion as an option, will no longer receive funding from the American government. 

Since 1984, every Democrat president has suspended the policy only to have it reinstated as soon as a Republican takes office. 

Now, President Trump is reviving the policy once more but with a tiny bit more impact than the last revival by George W. Bush in 2001.

And by a tiny bit more I mean $8.2 billion more. 

Under the Bush administration, $600 million of American funding was taken from foreign facilities that didn’t conform to the gag rule, according to The New York Times and The Washington Post, (although according to Fox News, it was only $600,000). Trump has now proposed that $8.8 billion be taken. 

The main goal of the global gag rule is to stop “exporting abortions.” AKA the government doesn’t want abortions to happen in the U.S. and they don’t want people going overseas to get these procedures either. 

Seems logical – if we want abortions to stop everywhere, we should stop giving people money to perform abortions. Except it’s not that simple or logical. 

The facilities that offer abortion services or counseling abroad are also facilities that are fighting to treat malaria, AIDs, STDs and many other deadly diseases. But even if abortion is legal in these countries and the facilities are using their own funds to provide abortion services and using American money for their other services, if they don’t promise to treat “abortion” as a dirty word and never even say it to their patients, Trump will cut off their funding. 

“So, other countries can’t kill their unborn children on American taxpayers dime, who cares?” is something you might be saying to yourself. 

But the implications of this loss of funding are far more severe than just no more abortions – because there will probably not be a drop in the rates of abortions, according to a 2011 Stanford study that explained how defunding family planning actually leads to more abortions. 

If a woman is desperate enough to end her pregnancy, she will find a way – either by getting it done illegally by a provider or by performing it herself (think battery acid and wire clothes hangers).

These facilities are some of the only places where foreign women, especially those of low income households, to receive education on safe sex, STD and STI information and treatment as well as contraceptives. 

Without these facilities, there will be even more women that find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy. 

According to news coverage by Fox News, there will be exemptions made for women who are victims of rape or incest and when the woman’s life is at risk. The Secretary of State also has the right to determine a woman’s need on a case-by-case basis.

The news of President Trump reinstating the policy with such force has brought out the opinions of both supporters and critics. 

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List which supports politicians who oppose abortions, said to the Washington Post that this expansion will only help facilities that provide solid healthcare abroad as “abortion is not health care.” 

I completely agree. If the world had never discovered abortion, things would be just fine. Abortion isn’t like the cure to the plague or discovering antibiotics – the world isn’t a better place because of it.

But, we do know about abortions which will always be an option in the back of women’s mind no matter the legality of it.

In my opinion, if a woman is in a situation as described above (rape, incest, bad health), she should have the choice to decide to abort the child. I’m not saying that she should abort the child, because not all of these situations pose a problem for all women in these positions, but they should have the option. Because this policy allows these women to choose, my issue isn’t with the defunding of abortions. 

My issue is with the defunding of entire facilities, cutting off funds that are going towards research and treatment of deadly diseases. And what happens when these communities lose their treatment? They will go anywhere that will help them, maybe even the U.S., bringing their diseases with them.

In response to Dannenfelser, I say that no, abortion isn’t health care, but the other work that these facilities are doing is and they should not be defunded completely just because of the other services they offer.