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Barbara Boxer Amendment to End Global Gag Rule Passes in the Senate (feminist update)
Feminist.org ^ | 4/06/05

Posted on 04/06/2005 3:41:51 PM PDT by Libloather

Boxer Amendment to End Global Gag Rule Passes in the Senate
Feminist Daily News Wire
April 6, 2005

Led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a champion for women's rights, the Senate passed an amendment to a foreign aid bill on Tuesday to overturn the Global Gag Rule. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Boxer and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), was passed 52-46, with eight Republican Senators joining the Democrats. Reuters reports that the US Senate has repeatedly rejected the dangerous and restrictive policy since it was first imposed by the Reagan Administration in 1984. Though President Clinton rescinded the policy for the eight years of his presidency, President George W. Bush issued an executive order to reinstate the Global Gag rule during his first official day in office in January 2001. The Global Gag Rule is a harmful US foreign policy that bars family planning programs receiving US international aid from using their own monies from separate sources for abortion counseling, advocacy, and referrals.

President Bush has threatened to veto the bill if it passes, Reuters reports, although the House of Representatives have yet to take up its version of the foreign aid bill. According to the Associated Press, it is unlikely that the bill, which would authorize $34 billion in State Department and foreign aid spending, will pass. No such foreign aid bill has passed since 1985, which results in actual foreign aid to be authorized through separate appropriations bills.

The Global Gag Rule is “desperately injuring the poorest women in developing nations," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. Under this policy, international family planning programs are forced either to lose a large percentage of their operating funds, or to discontinue services formerly paid for by private dollars, including gynecological exams, AIDS prevention and treatment, and contraception. US funding represents a significant portion of the budgets of many international nongovernmental organizations that provide essential health care to women in the developing nations. In many rural areas, these organizations are the only source of gynecological health care available.

Every year, according to the World Health Organization, over 80,000 women and girls die as a result of unsafe abortion. “The Global Gag Rule is causing gross suffering and needless deaths,” said Smeal. “The Global Gag Rule makes a farce pf the President’s pledge of a ‘culture of life’.”

The Feminist Majority and leading women’s rights and health advocates have urged President Bush to repeal the Global Gag Rule since it was reinstated.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: amendment; boxer; end; feminist; gag; global; passes; rats; rule; senate; update
President Clinton rescinded the policy for the eight years of his presidency...

Sure, but the impeached *Squirt got serviced while deploying troops. All Global Gag Rules would've been pretty much tossed out...

1 posted on 04/06/2005 3:41:52 PM PDT by Libloather
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To: MurryMom
From the same source -

Sen. Clinton Opposes Global Gag Rule and Attack on RU 486

Feminist Daily News Wire
January 26, 2001

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), in a speech yesterday, voiced her strong opposition to the elimination of US funds for international family planning organizations and to the possible political review of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill RU 486.

Citing the Food and Drug Administration’s September 2000 approval of the drug, Clinton said, “I think the evidence of the efficacy and safety of RU 486 is convincing and I would be very concerned if a decisions were made on political grounds instead of on medical or scientific grounds.” In Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson’s confirmation hearing, he claimed that the medication’s safety is “in question” and may merit a review.

There are no legitimate safety issues "in question" when it comes to Ru-486. It is a safe, effective method of early abortion and a possible treatment for uterine fibroid tumors, meningiomas, ovarian cancer and a myriad of other diseases and conditions that particularly affect women. RU 486 has been used in France since 1988, in the United Kingdom since 1991, in Switzerland since 1992, and is now becoming even more widely available throughout Europe and the rest of the world. It has been used safely by hundreds of thousands of women worldwide. In its September 1996 "approveable" letter, the FDA ruled that RU 486 is safe and effective. Final approval of the drug in September 2000 made it crystal clear that mifepristone had met all FDA criteria.

Clinton also admonished Bush’s executive order to end US funding to international family planning organizations that counseled women on abortion or provided abortion services, even if those services were financed with separate, private funds.

2 posted on 04/06/2005 3:45:21 PM PDT by Libloather (Start Hillary's recount now - just to get it out of the way...)
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To: Libloather
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a champion for women's rights

Well, the ones who manage to make it out of the womb alive, anyway.

3 posted on 04/06/2005 3:46:14 PM PDT by Argus (Mi tagline es su tagline)
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To: Libloather

I know it's old, but thank you for EXPOSING THE WITCH from IL/AR/NY. We're going to need to do lots more as she marches closer to her D nomination.


4 posted on 04/06/2005 3:47:55 PM PDT by anniegetyourgun
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To: Libloather
Eleanor Smeal just wants to bring world standards in line with Roe v. Wade. That way all those unlawful, unsafe abortions can be turned into lawful, unsafe abortions.

Can someone pull her feeding tube or something?

5 posted on 04/06/2005 3:50:38 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Libloather
The seven Republicans were:

Chafee (R-RI), Collins (R-ME), Smith (R-OR), Snowe (R-ME), Specter (R-PA), Stevens (R-AK), Warner (R-VA)

and not voting was:

Allard (R-CO)

Bloggodocio

6 posted on 04/06/2005 3:51:53 PM PDT by bloggodocio
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To: Libloather

If I'm not mistaken, this passed by a narrower margin than previously. It's sad it passed but conservatives are gaining in the Senate. Anyone know which Reps crossed over?


7 posted on 04/06/2005 3:52:25 PM PDT by Princip. Conservative
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To: Libloather

Fanatics like Boxer are unmoved by facts, but the plain truth is that birth dates are collapsing everywhere. Once it was believed that the world population would reach 11 Billion before it started to decline Now the projection is 9 bill;ion, and by mid century world births will be less than deaths world wide, and the human population will grow steadily older.


8 posted on 04/06/2005 3:53:37 PM PDT by RobbyS (JMJ)
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To: bloggodocio

"The seven Republicans were:
Chafee (R-RI), Collins (R-ME), Smith (R-OR), Snowe (R-ME), Specter (R-PA), Stevens (R-AK), Warner (R-VA)"


why does chafee call himself a republican? the girls from maine seem to vote lock step out of the mainstream also..


9 posted on 04/06/2005 3:55:36 PM PDT by mblaise
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To: Corin Stormhands
The seven Republicans were:

Chafee (R-RI), Collins (R-ME), Smith (R-OR), Snowe (R-ME), Specter (R-PA), Stevens (R-AK), Warner (R-VA)

and not voting was: Allard (R-CO)

10 posted on 04/06/2005 3:57:04 PM PDT by jla
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To: Libloather

If Boxer and Smeal like it,...I hate it.

Is Boxer the dumbest, stupidest, most not getting it person on the planet?


11 posted on 04/06/2005 3:57:29 PM PDT by garyhope
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To: mblaise
I'm sure some will scream "I told you so" regarding Sen. Specter, too. Bloggodocio
12 posted on 04/06/2005 3:58:41 PM PDT by bloggodocio
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To: Libloather
Every year, according to the World Health Organization, over 80,000 women and girls die as a result of unsafe abortion.

Every year, millions of babies die as a result of "safe abortion."

13 posted on 04/06/2005 3:59:55 PM PDT by B Knotts (Ioannes Paulus II, Requiescat in Pacem.)
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To: bloggodocio
The seven Republicans were:

Chafee (R-RI), Collins (R-ME), Smith (R-OR), Snowe
(R-ME), Specter (R-PA), Stevens (R-AK), Warner (R-VA)

Perhaps some of the usual suspect RINOs decided to grow a backbone. Remember recalcitrant Republicans. Snowe must go!

Senate RINOs opposing the nuclear constitutional option
Term Expires Name State
2006 Snowe ME
2006 Chafee RI
2008 Collins ME
2008 Hagel NE
2008 Warner VA
2010 McCain AZ

14 posted on 04/06/2005 4:05:45 PM PDT by Milhous
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To: Argus
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), a champion for women's rights

Barbara Boxer, biggest baby-killer in the Senate. They should invoke a global hag rule, and that would be the end of her.

15 posted on 04/06/2005 4:14:56 PM PDT by Kenny Bunkport
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To: Libloather

"Gag rule" is liberal duckspeak for the Mexico City agreement, passed by Reagan, reversed by clinton, and reinstated by Bush, which forbids spending American dollars on baby killing.

Orwell would have been thrilled by this vicious twisting of the language. We are gagging the feminists because we won't let them kill quite so many babies? Is that what they mean?


16 posted on 04/06/2005 4:18:58 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero
We are gagging the feminists because we won't let them kill quite so many babies? Is that what they mean?

Under this policy, international family planning programs are forced either to lose a large percentage of their operating funds, or to discontinue services formerly paid for by private dollars, including gynecological exams, AIDS prevention and treatment, and contraception.

Follow the money. The fewer abortions, the less we may need feminists...

17 posted on 04/06/2005 4:54:17 PM PDT by Libloather (Start Hillary's recount now - just to get it out of the way...)
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To: Libloather

Ya, this is going to help the Dems re-position themselves on moral issues in time for 2006/2008.

Glad to see they're learning so many lessons from 2004.


18 posted on 04/06/2005 5:37:12 PM PDT by jbloedow
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and not voting was: Allard (R-CO)

General FYI, Allard would have voted against.

19 posted on 04/06/2005 6:30:49 PM PDT by JohnnyZ (“When you’re hungry, you eat; when you’re a frog, you leap; if you’re scared, get a dog.”)
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To: Libloather
The RINOs muscled it through the Senate. Let's face it: the sistuhs are not big on protecting living women's lives. But making abortion on demand available anywhere in the world makes them comes alive.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
20 posted on 04/06/2005 8:17:34 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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