Clinton Speaks Out Against Family Planning ‘Gag Rule’

President Clinton used Friday’s World Health Day observance to push Congress for increased U.S. financing of family planning work abroad.

Clinton said 600,000 women die each year of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. He wants Congress to raise family planning assistance and wants the money to come without a restriction dubbed the “global gag rule.”

Using U.S. funds to perform abortions abroad has been prohibited since 1973. Last year, Congress imposed a restriction on giving money to nongovernmental organizations that use money from other sources to advocate for or provide abortions.

“Those congressionally sponsored restrictions impose a destructive double-standard,” Clinton said. “When would we ever accept rules telling Americans at home not even to discuss women’s health and women’s choices?

“And how, in the name of democracy and freedom, can we impose those rules on others which would be illegal here in the United States?”

Clinton was joined at the World Health Day event by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Dr. Enyantu Ifenne, a pediatrician from Nigeria, who said it is commonplace in her country for 12-year-old girls to marry and begin families.

She politely said the gag rule was “very un-American.” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) was more blunt: “Gag rules are enough to make you gag.”

Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-Pa.), who led a fight in the House against the rule, urged citizens to call their represenative and say: “I wouldn’t let you gag me, and I will not let you gag anyone anywhere around the world.”

Not all his Republican colleagues agree. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) released a statement after the event, saying the president is criticizing the very legislation he signed.

“If the president were really committed to family planning--as opposed to abortion--he would enthusiastically embrace the pro-life policy, which is now, with his signature, the law of the land,” Smith said. “This policy establishes a bright line of demarcation between those groups that support genuine family planning and those that refuse to divest themselves from the grisly business of abortion.”