Now we are in 2004, exactly halfway to 2015. A renewed commitment is urgently needed. Financial promises have not been fulfilled and there is a growing pressure on the international consensus.
For example the abstinence only campaign, embraced by the United States, the Vatican and a number of Islamic countries. The Global Gag Rule: a policy, reinstated by the Bush administration in 2001 in the US, which imposes restrictions on international planning, by making US funding for foreign NGOs conditional on their acceptance of this policy. In theory, this policy means that foreign NGOs are not allowed to perform abortions or lobby to make abortions legal if they want to keep receiving the generous US funds - in practice, the policy's restrictive implementations means that foreign NGOs are not allowed to have any connection with abortion whatsoever. Since many, if not most family-planning clinics worldwide are run by NGOs refusing to sign up the Global Gag Rule. And since these NGOs have not been able to make up the shortfall of funs by other means. The aim of the Mexico City Policy is pro-life: it is meant to save the lives of unborn children as well as those of their mothers, by discouraging the use of abortion of as a method of family planning.
