Democrats Take Aim at Longstanding Law Holding Back Global Abortion Lobby

By | August 6, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C.  August 7 (C-Fam) For almost fifty years, U.S. law backed by bi-partisan consensus has prohibited U.S. funding from being used to provide or promote abortion overseas.  Recently, Democratic members of Congress introduced a bill that would repeal that law, which has quietly but effectively held the global abortion lobby in check for decades.

Named for Senator Jesse Helms, the Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act was introduced in 1973, the same year the Supreme Court legalized abortion across the U.S. Not to be confused with the Mexico City Policy, which blocks U.S. funding entirely from foreign-based organizations that promote abortion, the Helms Amendment requires recipients of aid to keep their funding separated, so that U.S. funding is not used for abortion-related activities.  Critically, the Mexico City Policy is a presidential executive order which has been repealed during Democratic administrations, while the Helms Amendment is a long-standing law.

The newly introduced “Abortion is Healthcare Everywhere Act” would repeal the Helms Amendment and enable the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to become, as Senator Helms put it, “the world’s largest exporter of death.”

Among the abortion advocates eager to see the new bill become law, none is more vocal than an organization called Ipas, which was founded to take over the manufacturing and distribution of portable manual abortion devices after the Helms Amendment prohibited USAID from doing so

Unlike other “reproductive health” organizations that frame themselves primarily as family planning groups, Ipas keeps abortion at its center.  Despite its near-exclusive focus on a highly controversial issue, it has become influential in health ministries, even in countries with pro-life laws, such as Kenya and Nigeria.

In 2013, Kenya’s health ministry issued a Patients’ Rights Charter in which Ipas affiliates were expressly thanked for their “financial and technical support” in producing it.  Ipas is also lobbying the government of Nigeria to liberalize its abortion laws.

The Helms Amendment plays a critical role in protecting U.S. humanitarian assistance from being co-opted by the abortion lobby.  Referring to the influx of Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar into Bangladesh, Ipas president Anu Kumar recently said that “the U.S. government is the largest humanitarian contributor to the Rohingya crisis and is providing $820 million for that effort, but not a cent of that is going towards safe abortion care.”

Unlike its domestic counterpart, the Hyde Amendment, the Helms Amendment does not contain exceptions, but focuses on broadly restricting U.S. funding for the means to procure abortions.  During the Obama administration, some abortion groups called for the law to be reinterpreted to include exceptions, but when a compromise was suggested that would include conscience protections, abortion advocates ultimately decided that “leaving Helms intact is a better alternative at the moment.”

While running for president, Hillary Clinton vowed to reinterpret Helms without conscience protections, but she was defeated by President Donald Trump in 2016.

The bill to repeal the Helms Amendment has been introduced in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, and will likely encounter opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate, and would almost certainly face a veto from President Trump.  But much depends on the U.S. election in November, with control of both chambers of Congress, as well as the presidency, hanging in the balance.

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