Congressman blasts US abortion "gag rule"

US Republican Congressman James Greenwood, who this week toured Kenya, has criticised the US government's decision to withdraw funding for a number of international family planning programmes.

Addressing journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday he said this had negatively impacted on the lives of poor women in Kenya.

The new policy, commonly referred to as the "global gag rule", conditions US funding for international family planning programmes on recipients' agreement to refrain from providing abortions, or working to make or keep abortion from being made legal in their own country.

Greenwood said the new policy had resulted in the closure of numerous family planning clinics, putting the lives of many women at risk.

He said up to 50,000 Kenyan women had lost family planning services as a result of the closures, and were getting pregnant more often. He added that many women were also putting their lives in danger by inducing unsafe abortions.

"The clinics are closing down. They have been forced to make difficult choices, because they cannot access funds," Greenwood said. "Women become pregnant more often. They induce abortions, and one way or another, they get infected and die in greater numbers because of this policy.

The organisations most affected by this policy are the Family Planning Association of Kenya (FPAK), Kenya's largest contraception provider, and Marie Stopes. Both organisations have a countrywide network of volunteers which most women associate with, according to Greenwood.

The US government is currently seeking partnerships with alternative family planning organisations in the country, but this plan may not work as other agencies may not have well established infrastructures compared to Marie Stopes and FPAK, Greenwood said.

"They are going to reinvent the wheel and try to establish partnerships with agencies that may not have the experience or a volunteer network," he added.