Mordazas Mexicanas

Finally, some movement on the global gag, or the Mexico City directive. The policy specifies:

Under the policy that the president reinstituted on January 22, 2001, foreign NGOs are disqualified from receiving U.S.-donated contraceptive supplies, as well as family planning funding, unless they agree not to use their non-U.S. funds to provide abortion services, refer patients elsewhere for such services or advocate for liberalization of their country’s abortion laws.

So not only can the NGOs not use their US funding for abortion-related services, as with Title X (which covers US state-funded abortion providers), but they cannot use any other funds they receive for them either. This, in case you were wondering, is a bad, bad, bad thing.

It says so much about what Bush and his cronies think about women. We don't trust you US women to make your own decisions; but we recognise (albeit grudgingly and unhappily) that we cannot control you, not entirely. But you poor women dependent on foreign funding for all healthcare, you're a different story; you are utterly dependent upon us, and so we can use that vulnerability to enforce our ideology upon you.

So Bush will get veto-happy again, but at least we seeing some positive action at a time when the Supreme Court veers and lurches further and further to the right and tries desperately to challenge the Rehnquist Court as the most activist in Supreme Court history. It's small fry in comparison, but this signal of intent is a start, at least.