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Population:
Overturn the Global Gag Rule

Our Position: support
Bill Number: S.AMDT.278 to S600
Sponsor: Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Legislative Session: 2005

The Boxer Amendment to the State Department foreign aid authorization bill was an attempt to overturn the Global Gag Rule. The amendment has the potential to help ensure that women and families around the world have access to crucial family planning education and services that enable them to choose the size and spacing of their families, ultimately leading to healthier and smaller families and reducing stress on the planet's natural resources.

The Global Gag Rule disqualifies overseas family planning organizations from receiving U.S. family planning funds if they, with their own money, lobby to change abortion laws or provide legal abortion services in their countries. Only two days after his inauguration in 2001, President Bush signed an executive order to reinstate the global gag rule - limiting US support for overseas family planning programs. The House has yet to take up its version of the State Department bill.

Status

By a vote of 52-46, the Senate voted to pass the Boxer Amendment on April 5, 2005.