In celebration of International Women’s Day, we are excited to share Dr. Allie Linton’s Voices of Courage story.

President Donald J. Trump’s announcement of his global gag rule – also known as the Mexico City Policy, one of the first actions he took as president, is a massive expansion of a failed policy that prohibits non-U.S. organizations that receive U.S. funding from providing, referring, or even mentioning abortion services.

Trump’s global gag rule applies to all U.S. global health assistance, effectively creating a poisoned pot of funding for programs such as HIV prevention, malaria and tuberculosis, and maternal and child survival.

Trump’s global gag rule will likely contribute to at least 6.5 million unintended pregnancies and more than 2 million unsafe abortions. It will halt the introduction of new, effective contraception options for some of the poorest regions of the world. And, it will have a devastating impact on services for infectious diseases like Zika and Ebola. Additionally, earlier this week, President Trump’s first budget outline proposes a 37 percent cut to the State Department and USAID. These cuts combined with the already deadly global gag rule will kill women around the world.