Lindsey Pulse
Norway Is Donating $10 Million To Women's Health NGOs Around The World
It's a response to Donald Trump's reinstatement of a rule preventing NGOs that provide or promote abortions from receiving government funding.
LEARN MOREPosted: 3:44 p.m. EST Mar 2, 2017
Countries around the world have pledged millions of dollars to help organizations affected by the so-called "global gag rule."
In January, President Donald Trump signed an order that reinstated the rule, which is officially named the Mexico City policy. It pulls U.S. government funding from foreign nonprofits that discuss or provide abortions to women.
On Thursday, around 50 countries attended the She Decides conference in Brussels to raise money for those affected by the order.
The "global gag rule" has been around for a while — President Ronald Reagan first enacted it in 1984. Since then, it's been repealed and reinstated several times. Barack Obama got rid of it his first week in office.
Now the current U.S. administration has brought it back and expanded it — a lot. Rather than pulling only "family planning" funds, Trump's order takes away all funding for those nonprofits. That could be billions of dollars of difference in aid.
She Decides event organizers and participants hope to raise $600 million to help fill the hole left by the order.
Countries pledging money emphasize this is not an effort against the U.S. government — it's fighting for women's rights.
