US foreign aid provides critical support to organizations serving women, children, and families around the world, ensuring that those with the greatest need have access to life-saving sexual and reproductive health care. Our Jewish values compel us to advocate for abortion care across the globe — in Judaism, abortion is permitted and even required when the life of the pregnant person is at stake.

Even before the recent US foreign aid freeze was implemented, global health providers who received this aid faced serious constraints in their capacity to deliver care. The Global Gag Rule, first implemented in 1984 and reinstated by President Trump in January, bans international organizations that receive US aid from using any of their funds — whether or not from the US — to provide or even discuss abortion care. This dangerous policy impacts access to contraception, HIV prevention, nutrition assistance, malaria treatment, and more.

As a result of the Global Gag Rule, clinics close, unsafe abortions increase, health care providers are silenced, and women, children, and families are harmed. Abortion bans — at home and those we export abroad — are against our religion. We must take action to protect reproductive health care at home and around the world. The Global Health, Rights, and Empowerment (HER) Act is important legislation that would permanently repeal the Global Gag Rule, ensuring that global family planning aid recipients are free to provide high-quality, comprehensive, and accessible care. 

Read our Global Gag Rule fact sheet, created in partnership with American Jewish World Service, here.

Write your members of Congress today and urge them to vote YES on the Global HER Act and end the Global Gag Rule.