The twitter thread gives you the quick overview of Jill Filipovic’s stunning article about a subject that will break your heart. If Joe Biden wants to restore the soul of American he will do something about this:
We know that rape is endemic in conflict, and that survivors sometimes get pregnant. In most of the world, rape survivors are legally entitled to abortions. But because of the US abortion wars, women raped in conflict can almost never get safe abortions.
Reporting and writing this story took four years. It is hands down the most important thing I’ve worked on in my career. The question of why rape survivors in conflict and crisis areas cannot get safe abortions has long gone unanswered — ignored because the answer is ugly.
The human stakes are incredibly high. I have a big stack of notebooks full of devastating stories from women who can’t vote in US elections, but whose lives have been indelibly shaped by US policy — and particularly by the exportation of the American abortion wars.
This is not even a GOP vs. Dem issue. Yes, Joe Biden lifted the Global Gag Rule — but that rule had no bearing on whether women abroad can access safe abortion services if they’ve been raped. Even with Democratic presidents, USAID funding never pays for rape survivors’ abortions
The answer to “why can’t women raped in conflict access safe abortions?” may seem obvious: perhaps it seems logistically difficult to provide abortion care in refugee settings, or maybe it’s because abortion is illegal in a lot of places. Turns out very little of that is true.
Unsafe abortion is so common in emergency settings that humanitarian aid organizations overwhelmingly offer post-abortion care, which is usually either pills or a vacuum aspiration procedure — the medications & the procedures are basically the same as elective abortion.
That means that there’s a whole universe of health workers who are already functionally trained on safe abortion provision in humanitarian settings, making safe abortion provision already baked in to emergency care. And with medication abortion, it’s as easy as counting out pills
As for legality, while abortion is restricted in many many places, very few countries outlaw it in all cases. In most countries, including those with large refugee populations, abortion is legal for rape survivors and / or to save a woman’s life or health.
So what’s the barrier? How is it that “rape as a weapon of war” is well-covered by reporters and has been legally categorized as a crime against humanity, but so few people take the next step and say, “so what are we doing to make sure rape victims aren’t forced into childbirth?”
It’s partly cowardice & stigma: Abortion is “controversial” and people find it icky, so safe abortion gets pushed to the side, even for the most vulnerable women in the world. And it’s party the US, the largest funder of global health, exporting its conservative abortion politics
That’s changing: For the first time, safe abortion care was integrated into a humanitarian emergency response during the Rohingya crisis, when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled attacks, including mass rape, in Myanmar. But that care happened without the US.
But still, women raped in conflict largely cannot access safe abortions. There is one simple policy change that could make a huge difference: Joe Biden could clarify that the Helms Amendment, which bars USAID funding for abortion, doesn’t apply to abortions for rape survivors.
It would be better to overturn Helms wholesale, but that would require Congress to act, and that’s unlikely. Biden, though, could unilaterally clarify Helms. Obama could have, too — women’s rights advocates certainly asked — but he didn’t. Will Biden act differently?
Biden laudably removed the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion for American women, from his budget. The question is whether he’ll do the same for women overseas — or as @SerraSippel says, if this is an “America First” moment and women abroad are disposable.
“There is not that much I am proud of,” a Rohingya woman told me. She survived rape at the hands of soldiers, escaped Myanmar, then figured out how to safely end her pregnancy. “But still I am alive after all that happened to me. I tried to save my own life. I am proud of that.”
Huge thanks to @nybooks for taking this on. @ejcnet funded the reporting & @NAFellows gave me time & support to write it. There’s nothing better than working w/ @nicholesobecki, whose images are gorgeous & sensitive. And @namlyd & @LauraRepoOrtega were crucial members of our team
Originally tweeted by Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) on June 17, 2021.