Congressional Update – June 2007

The legislative calendar between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July is traditionally a very busy time on Capitol Hill, and this year is no exception. The next several weeks will feature significant action in both the House and Senate as efforts are underway to restore effective, evidence-based approaches to U.S. assistance on family planning and HIV/AIDS.

The all-important annual appropriations process officially got underway on June 4 with the House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee’s approval of its fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill.  The measure contains several important family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) provisions, including: (1) granting the president the authority to waive the abstinence-only earmark under PEPFAR that requires at least one-third of U.S. HIV/AIDS prevention funding be limited to abstinence-until-marriage programs; and (2) an exemption of U.S. contraceptives shipments to the developing world from the restrictions of the Global Gag Rule (Mexico City Policy).   Both of these provisions represent desperately needed -- and long overdue -- changes to the ineffective and destructive reproductive health policies of the Bush Administration. 

The House’s foreign assistance bill is tentatively scheduled to be considered by the full House of Representatives as early as June 20. Attempts to repeal these two provisions, particularly the contraceptives measure, are expected during the House debate. Once the House completes action, the Senate will begin moving its own version of the FY 2008 Foreign Operations bill.

The House bill provides an overall funding level of $441 million for U.S. international FP/RH programs through USAID.  This represents a $116 million increase above the President’s request but only a slight increase over current levels.  The bill also includes $40 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), subject to existing Kemp-Kasten restrictions, but it requires more detailed reporting by the Bush Administration in the event that it again invokes Kemp-Kasten and withholds funds from UNFPA.  In addition, any funds withheld from UNFPA would have to be reprogrammed to bilateral FP/RH activities through USAID. 

“Thanks to the tremendous leadership and dedication of congressional champions such as Subcommittee Chair Nita Lowey, the House bill will save tens of thousands of lives and improve the quality of life for countless more women and children,” said Terri Bartlett, Vice President for Public Policy at PAI.  “The provisions on the Gag Rule and abstinence represent a much-needed restoration of common sense when it comes to U.S. policies on family planning and HIV/AIDS.”

The House provision exempting contraceptives from the Global Gag Rule’s restrictions marks a growing awareness among Members of Congress about the shortages of contraceptives in many poor, developing nations.  More than 200 million women in the developing world wish to delay or end childbearing but don’t have access to modern contraceptives.  As PAI has documented in detail in recent years through extensive research in the field, this shortfall in contraceptive supplies is growing -- and U.S. restrictions under the Global Gag Rule are greatly exacerbating the problem.  [see: http://www.globalgagrule.org/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1z1rdnaPVA ]

Providing contraceptives to the 200 million women who lack desired access to them would avert 52 million unwanted pregnancies each year.  This would prevent an estimated 29 million abortions, 142,000 pregnancy-related deaths, and 505,000 children from losing their mothers.  That’s why the stand-alone version of the Global Gag Rule-Contraceptives provision (H.R. 2367) is sponsored by a diverse group of Members of Congress on both sides of the abortion issue, including anti-abortion Members such as Jim Oberstar (D-MN), Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Mike Michaud (D-ME), and pro-choice Members such as Russ Carnahan (D-MO), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), and Chris Shays (R-CT).

Support is also growing in Congress for stand-alone bills that would repeal the abstinence-until-marriage earmark in PEPFAR.  Legislation to repeal the abstinence restrictions has been introduced in the House by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Chris Shays (R-CT) and in the Senate by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).  The bills, H.R. 1713 and S. 1553 , respectively, respond to growing evidence from independent investigations -- and countless stories from the field – that the abstinence restrictions are undermining U.S. efforts to prevent new HIV infections.