US President Donald Trump Monday signed a decree barring US federal funding for foreign NGOs that support abortion, relaunching a battle that has long divided Americans. It comes just two days after women led a massive protest march in Washington to defend their rights, including to abortion.
Stenny Hoyer, a Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, sharply criticized Trump for using his first week in office “to attack women’s health.”
The restrictions imposed today prohibit foreign nongovernmental organizations that receive US family planning assistance from using non-US funding to provide abortion services, information, counseling or referrals and from engaging in advocacy to promote abortion.
They were first put in place in 1984 by Republican president Ronald Reagan. Later eliminated by Democratic president Bill Clinton, they were reinstalled by his Republican successor George W. Bush, and annulled again after Barack Obama took office.
The new president has pledged to nominate an anti-abortion justice to the Supreme Court, which could lead to overturning Roe v. Wade, the emblematic ruling that legalised abortion in the United States in 1973.