The Prospect of Global Human Rights Under the Trump Administration

The incoming Trump administration won’t just devastate sexual and reproductive health in the United States—the harm will absolutely ripple abroad. Rachel Clement, Senior Director of Government Strategy at PAI, sits down to talk with us about the prospect of global human rights under the incoming administration and potential harmful policy to come.

Already, less than 1% of the U.S. budget goes to foreign assistance. And, under the Trump administration, it’s incredibly likely that UNFPA will be defunded, in tandem with cutting funding in other UN spaces like the WHO, UNESCO, and UN Women. During the last Trump administration, the Geneva Consensus Declaration was created to undermine the United Nations and multilateralism in general, while the Commission on Unalienable Rights, out of the State Department, sought to re-define human rights; these tools and others like them might reemerge. In all, attacks to gender and sexual and reproductive health and rights around the world will be enormous, especially with the probable reintroduction of the expanded Global Gag Rule.

Links from this episode

PAI on X
PAI on Facebook
The Global Gag Rule’s Harm Has Persisted for 40 Years
GlobalGagRule.org
Video: The Global Gag Rule—What’s the Point?
Webinar: Post-election Analysis
Washington Memo: Let’s Not Sugar Coat It—A Quick First Take on the Implications for International Family Planning Programs in a Second Trump Term
Policy Brief: Support the Global HER Act to Permanently Repeal the Global Gag Rule

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Jennie: Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host Jennie Wetter and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, I guess I've not talked to you since before I went on vacation, before Thanksgiving. It was so lovely to have a week off. I really did a really good job of staying away from social media, which was so lovely. I read a bunch of fluffy fun books. I had a really just chill week and it was so nice and so necessary and it was good to recharge that way. And then let's see, last Tuesday I went to SCOTUS for a little while to join the rally out front before the gender affirming care case. I wasn't able to stay for the whole rally. I had some meetings I had to go to and some other things, but I was able to go for, like, an hour and a half and enjoy the crowd. Like, there were a lot of antis there—from the way I came in, I saw them. But man, once you got to the trans right side of the rally, it was joy. There was just so much joy. They were playing fun music, and the sense of community was great. The crowd was much bigger than the anti side. I left and people were, so many people were still coming. I had a meeting at our office, which is, like, right behind the Supreme Court and was in the office for like an hour and a half. And when I was on my way home, my Uber went by the Supreme Court and, like, the crowd had, I don't, not quite doubled, but maybe doubled. And it was just so great to see so many people out joyfully supporting trans rights and making sure that young people are able to access gender affirming care. It just, it made my heart so happy to see so many people there supporting young trans people. So, even though the arguments don't sound like they were super hopeful, but the advocates Chase Strangio and Solicitor General Prelogar did amazing. And I hope that we get a good decision, but I am not super confident that we will get a good decision. But it was amazing to see the community come out and support and see so many people there and to again, just see so much joy of people being there in community supporting trans rights. So that was really re-energizing to be able to go for a little bit. I wish I could have stayed longer and been there for all of the speeches people made, but it was great to go for as much as I was able to and I'm glad I was able to squeeze it into my day 'cause I would've been very sad to have missed out on being there. I think maybe I'll end there. I don't feel like I have a lot of other things to update y'all on. I am excited about this week's episode. You know, recently we had an episode where I talked to Erin Matson about some of the ways that sexual and reproductive health and rights are gonna be impacted by the new administration coming in in January. I thought that it would be good to have a more in depth conversation about some of the global stuff we are gonna see around sexual and reproductive health and rights in the new administration. So, I am very excited to have with me today, Rachel Clement at PAI to talk to us all about what we can, what we should be looking for with the new administration when it comes to global SRHR. So, with that, let's go to my conversation with Rachel.

Jennie: Hi Rachel. Thank you so much for being here today.

Rachel: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Jennie: I am excited to talk to you about terrible things. But before we get started, would you like to introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Rachel: Yeah, of course. My name is Rachel Clement, she/her/hers. I am currently the senior director for U.S. Government Strategy at PAI, where I work on advancing universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights globally.

Jennie: Awesome. So, in our last episode we talked about some of the things that we could see, well I guess maybe it wasn't our last, whatever. In a recent episode, we talked about some of the things we could see how the election was gonna impact sexual and reproductive health and rights, but we mostly focused domestically. So, I thought it would be really great to have you come on and give, like, that more global perspective. And I figured there were lots of ways this conversation could go, but maybe we'll start with, like, really big picture because I think people are less familiar with this space of, like, foreign assistance and things like that. So, what could this election have meant for big picture global stuff?

Rachel: Yeah, that's such a great question. I think when a lot of people think about foreign assistance, they think of kind of ongoing conflicts. So, Ukraine or other areas that are facing humanitarian disasters, but it is a big part of how the United States responds globally. But the United States spends less than 1% of its federal budget on foreign aid. And that goes to a number of different equities, including humanitarian aid, but also through development assistance, bilateral assistance engagement in multilateral fora. You know, all of that is not necessarily because the United States is so benevolent and so giving. Most of that is really targeted to ensure that interventions abroad are promoting things like democracy, human rights, and advancing U.S. interests. I think the two potential candidates at the presidential level had very different perspectives on how to advance those interests and what we're looking at with a Trump administration and the 119th Congress, it's potentially pretty scary. If the 119th Congress mirrors some of the more extremist agendas that we've seen through the campaigning, I think we can expect, if not funding cuts to foreign assistance, then certainly fights about foreign assistance and threats of cuts to funding and certainly policies and rules that will silence organizations that are saving lives in the world's most vulnerable communities.

Jennie: I really love that, like, the place you started was the less than 1% of our budget goes to foreign assistance 'cause I think general people have like this idea in their head that the foreign assistance budget is huge and, like, we're sending so much money on foreign assistance, but like it is such a small part of the US funding.

Rachel: Yeah, and you know, I think what we saw under the last Trump administration, there was a considered effort by some former high level military officials who served under bipartisan administrations to really say, look, the importance of foreign assistance is that it's the carrot before you need to use the stick. Like, this helps us to avoid getting into conflicts and protracted wars. And so, it should be a tool of the US government to use and leverage in an effective way. And I think there is some concern that the current actors and some of the more vocal folks who won in this last election don't necessarily see the value of foreign assistance in that same way.

Jennie: Yeah, and you're right, like the first place I'm worrying about is cuts we're gonna see to the budgets around foreign assistance and like how much we're spending and then how those cuts get distributed. Like, again, like, it's not with all things, it'll never be felt equally. In some places, it will be harder hit than others. And then, the other place that I know both of us are thinking about is the multilateral spaces and how we're gonna see those impacted.

Rachel: Yeah, I mean, I think we got a preview of what's to come under the last Trump administration and certainly through actions that former Trump administration officials continue to take under the Biden administration. I think we can say with a hundred percent certainty that UNFPA is going to be defunded and that it's very likely that other UN spaces like the WHO, UNESCO, UN Women will also be facing dress to cuts or defunding and like just honing in on UNFPA for a moment, because I have had the opportunity to really see some of the spaces that they interact with. And defunding UNFPA isn't just a bad policy. It feels like a real moral failure. It leaves mothers and babies to face the most vulnerable moments of their lives without the care that they urgently need. And in many of the spaces where UNFPA operates, there is no alternative. It's not that you defund UNFPA and someone else can swoop in and take over. There's no replacement or alternative. There's no one to supply the commodities that are needed in some of these really dire humanitarian settings or to provide the same care that their network of providers are able to provide. And that feels to me like the United States is telling people, but especially new mothers, that their lives don't matter, that their children's lives don't matter. And that, to me, feels antithetical to what the United States stands for.

Jennie: And again, like, it's gonna impact the most vulnerable, right? Like the U.S. Is the largest humanitarian donor to UNFPA and, like, there is just no replacing that amount of money and the number of places where UNFPA is and they're serving so many people who are in just the worst circumstances in humanitarian settings that it is, like you said, a real moral failure to think that they may have to scale back their services because they're losing this big pot of money.

Rachel: Absolutely. And UNFPA does operate in humanitarian settings that are places the United States government cannot go, places where a lot of a lot of people are not. And so, they do create this really vital role. They also work in development settings, they work on programs like the joint Programme to End Child Marriage where they're really working with local communities, local leaders to change social norms, that it's not hyperbolic to say that they're changing lives and they're empowering girls to be able to stay in school longer, to make choices about, you know, who and when and if they marry and ultimately to be able to just live fuller lives. So, yeah, I just really can't overstate how terrible it is going to be when this happens.

Jennie: Well, yeah, and we focused only on, like, the maternal health aspects in the humanitarian settings, but their work is bigger than that, right? Like, it's talking about gender-based violence prevention and care for people who have experienced gender-based violence, which always increases in humanitarian settings. So, like, they really are just playing such a vital role in all of these places and such vulnerable moments for people's lives. Okay, so that's, like, UNFPA and, like, kind of the UN in general, right? Like, we're probably gonna see a big attack on just UN spaces, you know, you mentioned the World Health Organization and UN Women and UNESCO, like we're probably gonna see a lot of attacks on the UN at large. But I think there's also another thing that both of us have, had talked about a lot coming back and that is the so-called "Geneva Consensus." Consensus declaration. Sorry, I can't even say it because it's not true, right? It's not a consensus document. So, like, my tongue didn't even wanna say it. So.

Rachel: And it wasn't written in Geneva.

Jennie: Right.

Rachel: Like, every single part of it is a lie. Yeah, no, I mean we've, we've seen some of what they wanna do, right? Like, they engaged in this so-called Geneva Consensus Declaration under the last Trump administration, which is a concerted effort to undermine the United Nations and multilateralism as a whole and to center as the most important part of foreign policy and engagement between nations, an anti-rights agenda, which is wild. And we saw, you know, under the last administration, they created the Commission on Unalienable Rights, which also sought to redefine what, what our human rights and who has rights. We also saw the last administration rewrite, there are these annual state department human rights reports. They go into detail on a number of different human rights abuses, country by country. And they're incredibly valuable for diplomats, but also for businesses seeking to make decisions about how and where they do business. And they erased reproductive rights entirely. They erased LGBTQ rights and then they seriously undermined women's rights overall.

Jennie: Yeah. When I think back to like the Commission on Unalienable Rights, like there's just no way to, like, think about it as, like, the way they came out and defined, like not all human rights are not created equal. There was definitely a hierarchy in their mind and religion and property rights were at the top and everything else was below that. Like, what are you kidding me? Like, property rights and religion came over basic human rights. Like they're all on a...like that, it just was wild. And thinking about that coming back is kind of unreal.

Rachel: Yeah. And not just religion, right? Because I think freedom of religion and freedom from religious persecution are very valuable human rights. It's Christian persecution and the promulgation of a certain kind of Christian values which is also really narrowly defining that right.

Jennie: That idea of like, that the rights are tiered and some rights have more credence than others, or that religion only means Christian religion. Like, that is not how human rights work. And, like, just bottom line: that's not how this works.

Rachel: And again, it's so hypocritical to many of the things that have been promoted for decades by the United States around this idea that we want to put power into local hands, that we want development to be sustainable. That we want ultimately to not be investing in other countries in this way because we want the global economy and everyone to sort of have these basic standards of healthcare, food access, education. If you're only narrowly defining which human rights matter to you, you're not really putting power back in local hands. You're not really creating a sustainable environment for these things to take place. Okay.

Jennie: I guess the next, like, bucket of things, and again, all of these are interrelated, right? Like, is thinking about gender and how we are going to see attacks in the gender space. Again, kind of back to that like human rights conversation of like women's rights or human rights and, like, definitely going to see and LGBTQ rights, right? And trans rights, like all of these are all equal human rights and, but I really think we're gonna be seeing a big attack on gender throughout domestic and global.

Rachel: Yeah, unfortunately, I think that's true. And I also think it's important to note some of the parallels that we're seeing between foreign policies and domestic policy. In some ways, some of the things the United States does abroad are tests to see how far they can push things before they bring those policies home. The average American is not as in the weeds on like PEPFAR reauthorization or what the UN global program is doing to end child marriage in Uganda. And so, it's a lot easier to test certain policies and see like, oh, okay, well can we take away this? Right? What if we don't fund this kind of work? What if we only prioritize that? I think what we're seeing unfortunately with the Dobbs decision is that more and more Americans are feeling the heft and the weight of what it is like to actually have your rights restricted and redefined. And I'm really hopeful that I'm wrong and that some of the worst things that could happen under this next administration and the new Congress don't come true. But there have been calls, you know, in conservative think tanks to redefine gender, to stop using the word gender to revert back to "women," "women and girls" if we're lucky. And I think that would be a real miss. I don't think that it's a good faith effort to really address what the root of some of these issues are. And while it is true that women and girls disproportionately face the burdens of gender inequality, gender-based violence and all of these things, it also takes working with men and working with boys and addressing why gender norm disproportionately harm LGBTQ communities to really improve any of this. And so, I hope that we don't go back to not only using some of that language, but sort of only looking at women as some kind of homogenous being because I think we lose again, a lot of the evidence-based learnings that we have from the last decade or so on what works to improve outcomes.

Jennie: Yeah. And just thinking of all of the people that will all of a sudden find themselves excluded.

Rachel: Yeah. And it just, the work will be less effective, even if you are just trying to help cisgender women. Like if you are not also working with men, if you are not also working with religious leaders, community leaders, their daughters, their sons, you're just not going to be doing effective development work. And those are our taxpayer dollars. They should be effective. And so, if we are going back to like this 1980s definition of what it means to work on gender, I just, it's going to be badly done. And why would we want that?

Jennie: Like, yeah, they are going to, like, really run away from gender and really try to become this "pro-life" administration, but, like, how do you see that actually, like, being representative as like pro-life, pro-women? Like, is this how they're going to try to paint themselves?

Rachel: Yeah, I think that's a perfect way of framing it, Jennie. They're absolutely going to try to paint themselves as helping women and helping families. But ultimately from the policy proposals we've seen and from what we know from the last Congress and the last administration, the things that they'll actually do are going to hurt women, hurt newborns, hurt children, and are not going to support happy, healthy families. And so, I think they're actually going to try to weaponize women and womanhood and motherhood in this really nefarious way that really only diminishes women to their status as incubators and doesn't even allow for things like education and economic empowerment and sort of the fulsome experience of being a human to be priorities under the next administration and with the next Congress. And that is, that's bleak.

Jennie: Ugh. Oh, that is, that's rough.

Rachel: But again, I don't think it has to be that way. I think that these are things that we absolutely need to push back on at every level.

Jennie: Agree. Like, I do not wanna see this retraction of all of this work we've done on this wide range of gender issues, from child marriage to FGM to girls' education, to so many other things. And we've already seen things being stalled. I mean, what, the UN women report, I don't know, was it last year or the year before saying we are 300 years away if we stay on the current track to gender equality to, like, see that get even further away is wild.

Rachel: Yeah. And you know, I think one thing we know for sure about a future Trump administration is that it's going to be very transactional and it's going to be very focused on what other countries and other actors can do for the United States. And I just hope that there is at least some willingness to listen and to understand that gender equality benefits the United States, that we have so much evidence to show that when women are economically empowered, they're happier and healthier, their families are happier and healthier, their communities are better. When women are involved in peace agreements, they're much more likely to last for decades than when they're excluded from the table. And that these things benefit us national security and all of these other things that we report to really prioritize and care about. I just, I hope that there is a framing and a willingness to listen and hear the fact that these are not just, like, fluffy, kind of nice-to-do social goods, which they also are, but they are really solid evidence-based, good foreign policy decisions.

Jennie: Okay. Now that we have talked about some of the gender implications, let's turn to the next thing that is something that we are gonna spend a lot of our time focused on, and that's the Global Gag Rule.

Jennie: Sure. One of the nefarious things about the global gag rule is that it's a little bit hard to explain and understand. What it does is...it was first enacted in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan and every president since Reagan has decided whether or not to enact or revoke the policy. So, it switches by party, which is also quite harmful because it has these enormous and devastating global impacts. But it forces organizations to choose whether or not they want to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare and education without U.S. Funding or to change the way that they do care as a whole, whether or not they're using U.S. government dollars, if they accept any U.S. dollars. So even if there were, you know, a true desire for no U.S. funding to go towards certain kinds of sexual reproductive health and rights work, that is not what this rule does. This rule is essentially poison that taints all of the dollars and makes it so that people cannot do with their own, their own dollars, their own government's dollars, other donor dollars, the kind of work that we know is evidence-based and effective. And that is probably also culturally relevant and, you know, desired by recipients. So historically, it is the most poor women and girls who suffer pregnant people often suffer disruptions in reproductive health services. We have ample evidence that demonstrates that the policy causes more unintended pregnancies, higher rates of maternal mortality, and a huge increase in unsafe abortions. It also impacts, like, HIV/AIDS, other funding. Under the last administration, the rule was expanded for the first time to include all global health funding. So, all of the sudden providers that were working on, like, tuberculosis and malaria and things that were unrelated to sexual and reproductive health and rights, were grappling with how to navigate this policy and how and where to change their work or not change their work. There are organizations who are lucky enough to be able to deny U.S. Funding and to continue their good work. Unfortunately, a lot of the providers who have to, are forced to make this choice are often small NGOs, local providers. And so, it does not only cause disruptions in care, but it can cause a lot of these really local organizations to have to shutter or shut down because some decide that they won't accept us funding and comply with the US Gag Rule, but then they don't have enough funding to be able to continue their work either because how do you...it is just an impossible choice. It's, like, I can provide one 10th of the care that my patients need and keep working or I just close down. It's cruel and the cruelty is the point. It is intended to be harsh. There is no evidence to demonstrate that the Gag Rule improves outcomes in any area.

Jennie: I just have like two things to add, like, that was great. Just a quick like clarification of, we talk about how it expanded under the previous Trump administration. Before that it only applied to family planning funding, which was a very small bucket of funding versus the whole global health program. And it had so much impact, partially because the Obama administration had spent so much of their effort around global health of integrating health systems. So, patients weren't having to go to this clinic to get maternal health and this clinic to get HIV or their kids going to this one. There was a real push to make sure that you could go to like one clinic and get all of the care. So now all of a sudden when this is, like, Global Gag Rule's affecting global health, you have all of these places that became integrated that had to grapple of how it was gonna impact their entire way of doing business. And so, like, it became just like even more harmful in many ways because of that.

Rachel: Well and just to add to that, one of the reasons they did that and tried to make that healthcare more integrated is because we know that's more effective. Yeah. There are a lot of parents who will do absolutely everything to make sure that their children get every, you know, regular health appointment that they need to make sure that they're developmentally on track and will not do the same for themselves. And so by integrating those clinics, you're able to say like, hey, while you're here, do you also wanna get, like, your tetanus booster? Like, do you also wanna just, like, get your shot? Like, and it's so much easier. And so overall populations are healthier because there's just that ease of care and when you're restricting funding streams, it does, it necessarily leads to these weird choices where it's like, okay, well this health clinic provides this one service because if a penny is spent on like the wall or the floor on SRHR services, it can't be done with U.S. Funding. So, that is with this funding stream and then all of the other services are over here in this building. And like you're lucky if that building is in the same city or the same community, you might have to travel for hours and hours or be days away kinda depending on where you are. So yeah, that's a really great point, Jennie. Thank you.

Jennie: Okay, so that was terrible, right? Like, that expansion we were dealing with the fallout of it, honestly still.

Rachel: Yeah.

Jennie: For the impacts it had. Unfortunately, it sounds like by looking at, like, Project 2025 and stuff, the proposal is to make it even worse. So, what are we looking at for this coming new administration?

Rachel: Yeah, I think that's a really important point too. One of the most harmful parts of the Global Gag Rule is the chilling effect that it has and that chilling effect can last before it's implemented. Just, you know, knowing that an administration is going to be incoming that will implement the Gag Rule and it can last after an administration who's imposed the Gag Rule has left office. Because, you know, as much as we are in the weeds of this stuff, most doctors and providers are not sort of day to day reading the latest on the Gag Rule. And so, a lot of people over implement and over interpret what this means if you're receiving U.S. funding, and it can have this enormous chilling effect that takes decades to recover from. So yes, to say that we're still feeling it is absolutely accurate. I'm a little bit hesitant to say, oh, the next administration is absolutely going to do X, Y, Z on Gag because we have seen in Project 2025 what's laid out would include all foreign assistance. What we know about President Trump is that sometimes what he promises or proposes is not kind of what's final and in policy. I don't have any reason to believe that he has surrounded himself with people who are going to mitigate that position. But I would just caution kind of your listeners and anyone who works with USAID or USAID implementers to just know that we have one administration at a time and right now the Biden administration is still in power. All of their policies are still in place and folks should continue to follow the law and the policies of this administration. All of that said, I do think that the potential harm for the Gag Rule is going to be enormous and that they're going to see exactly how far they can go before there's serious pushback. They were testing the waters, you know, in the last year of the last administration expanding the Gag Rule not only to global health, but to OAS think they will look to push this as far as they think they can get away with it.

Jennie: I'm really glad you pointed out, like, nobody needs to do anything right now. People who are getting U.S. Funds, like still run your programs as you are because gag is not any new iteration of gag is not in place yet. Even when it is announced until your contract changes, like, don't change it before you have to make the decision, 'cause you wanna make sure you're getting care to the people who need it.

Rachel: Well, and you wanna follow the law. I think-

Jennie: Yeah.

Rachel: There's this fear and this chilling effect that, oh, okay, well this, this terrible thing is going to happen and so we have to react now and I, I think it's well and good to start planning now for, okay, how will we react to this? What will we do? What procedures would we need to have in place? Can we continue to accept U.S. Funding? I think those are fine conversations to be having right now, but taking action, you know, in December of 2024 just doesn't feel like the right move. And I would hate to see anyone's care restricted because of rumors and fearmongering, or not fearmongering, just fear—very, very, very valid fear.

Jennie: Yeah. And I think that's really what's happening right now, right? Is people are scared about what they are going to have to do or decisions they're gonna have to make. And those are really hard decisions. Like, do you take the money and help people in the ways you can, do you refuse the money so you can provide the full range of care that you think is right? Like, that's a really hard choice to have to make when you are dealing with your community and, like, you're a trusted provider. Like, you wanna still be there to help your people, but you wanna also make sure they're getting all of the care that would enable them to lead healthy, fulfilled lives. So, I just, I always feel so hard for those people who are having to make that choice because it's an impossible choice.

Rachel: Yeah. And you know, while I know at the top that the United States is responsible for something like 42% of global reproductive health spending, that includes an enormous amount of work. That can be everything from infrastructure, including that, you know, there are clinics, there are safe places to go for care. It can include commodities, actual access to medications. It can also provide payment and salaries for doctors and nurses and community healthcare workers. And so, the U.S. putting restrictions on 42% of that pie is not a small thing and it will absolutely force people to make those really hard decisions that you just outlined.

Jennie: Okay. I know it's already like thinking through all of the things that we're gonna be dealing with in the next, like, four years. I'm already tired and it hasn't even started yet, but, like, still have the fight in me, just tired.

Rachel: Nooo.

Jennie: Okay. So, I always like to wrap up by, I mean hope isn't quite the right word but at least giving their audience some actions they can take to get involved. So, what can the audience do to help fight back against some of these things?

Rachel: Yeah, I mean, I said no because I think one of the things that the anti-rights actors that we're seeing sort of being most vocal in this moment do, they want us to lose hope before anything actually starts. They want us to feel devastated and to feel like there is nothing that we can do or say and to sort of silence ourselves and accept our fate as the worst possible outcome is inevitable when that is not the case. It is both true that the global impact of these regressive U.S. policies could be devastating and could end decades of progress on maternal health, contraceptive access, gender equality, and embolden this global anti-rights movement. But it's also true that we live in a democracy and that American citizens have incredible power. And I think now that more and more people are sort of feeling and realizing the ways in which our rights are being restricted here at home, I hope more and more people are also seeing those linkages to what we do abroad. You know, even in just talking to my friends and family, I think they're sort of continu- not constantly because I don't talk about this all the time, but when I bring it up and it's new information to them, my friends, were not aware that for the last 40 years we have been imposing the Gag Rule and that while at home we've had abortion access and we've had certain rights abroad, we're sending a very different message about what rights are rights and what the United States government cares about and prioritizes. And I think the more folks are aware of what we do abroad, the more they can also prevent some of it from coming back home and applying to us. But the more they can also talk to, you know, their friends and family and tell them about the Global Gag Rule and about U.S. foreign policy and our efforts to create a more gender-equitable world and ensure access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights. I know there's always like a "call your member of congress" call out and it's a weird time to add something like that, but I I would hope that your listeners would feel emboldened to do some of that in this coming Congress. I think one of the things that I continuously hear in my advocacy on the Hill is that they don't get calls about foreign policy again, unless it's, like, an Israel, Gaza, Ukraine situation. Generally, people are not as motivated to pick up the phone and call their member of Congress or send an email. It's okay to email too. And I would just, I would hope that people would feel a bit more emboldened to have those conversations with the folks in their lives and with their duly elected representatives. I'll also just say, you know, the PAI has a website that we run on the Global Gag Rule that I'm happy to send you. It's globalgagrule.org and we have a number of fact sheets. We have some really helpful things that we will update once we know what the new Gag Rule is going to entail. That helps practitioners understand, like, what's allowable under U.S. law, what is not allowable under U.S. Law. Because one of the things that they're going to want to do is create confusion so that folks are over sort of analyzing and implementing everything. So, we wanna make sure that folks have the tools and resources to be able to do what they're allowed to do under current U.S. law. There is a chart up now, so for folks who are doing anything between now and January 20th, you know, read our Good to Go chart and please know that we will be updating that and updating the website as we go.

Jennie: That is all great. And one of the things you said really made me think of something we kinda tangentially talked about, but maybe did not explicitly note, of one of the things we're going to lose. We talked about, you know, the Geneva Consensus and how, and, like, maybe defunding and some of this stuff with the un but the importance of the voice we are losing for the U.S. being an advocate in those spaces for sexual and reproductive health and rights to switch now to this anti-rights bully pulpit that they're going to be able to use. Like, that is going to be a huge shift in just the voice the U.S. is carrying around the world when they're speaking about these things.

Rachel: Yeah, I mean it was one of the, the hardest things, the hardest pills to swallow when the United States first endorsed the Geneva Consensus declaration, to see the United States aligning itself with the other nations that signed that document was jarring. I mean, I think reproductive rights are human rights and they're important full stop. I think they should also be viewed as a test for how many other rights can chipped away at, taken away. And when you look at some of the countries that United States was aligning itself with under the last Trump administration, I think that should get people fired up. I don't think that's what most Americans think the United States is. I think most Americans still view America as exceptional in a lot of ways, and that includes a lot of our democratic institutions. That includes a lot of our deeply held values. And I hope that people find inspiration and can keep, you know, seeding their own hope. Because I think some of these things that we will see with the new Congress, with the new administration may leave people feeling initially aghast or hopeless, but I don't think that's who this country is or who it sees itself as or wants to be aspirationally. And so, I hope that, like you said, there's still a lot of fight left in people because we are going to need to channel into that and not give up and to continue to push back against these things because everyone should have access to care and the United States should not be exporting restrictions and shame, but should really be exporting freedom and choice and hope ultimately.

Jennie: Yeah. And I think this is, like, the perfect moment to remind people like, man, just remember the first Trump administration—this is a marathon and not a sprint. There's gonna be a lot of things that pop up. You need to step in when you're able, take a step back when you are not, and not burn yourself out because you know, you just, you have to keep the hope and keep the fight going and don't give into that overwhelm as much as sometimes it is easy to do and to be taking care of yourself and your community and those around you because it is gonna be a long hard slog and you can't do all the things. You can't. You just, you just cannot. So, you do what you can when you can.

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a good reminder because I think one of the things we saw under the last administration and that we saw under the last Congress, particularly the House, was a lot of chaos.

Jennie: Yeah.

Rachel: It was hard to stay focused in one direction because there were so many little fires to kind of put out. And I think it's just a good reminder that not every fire is your fire to put out and that we all have to do our part and stand in your power wherever that power is and to know that you are not alone. That there is this whole community of people who are also going to be fighting for refugees in your community, migrants in your community, domestic issues. If you're focused on foreign policy, foreign policy, if you're focus on domestic policy and to just sort of tap in where you can and when you can. Absolutely.

Jennie: Rachel, thank you so much for being here today. It was so lovely to talk to you about, again, kind of terrible things, but it was a good conversation.

Rachel: Thanks so much. I hope the next time that we touch base we'll have happier stuff to talk about and some good wins. Yeah, I think we will.

Jennie: Okay y'all, I had a great time talking to Rachel about so many things. There are so many ways that we are going to see global impacts after the election, not just to SRHR, but to multilateral institutions, to foreign assistance in general. There's just so much to keep an eye on. And remember y'all, again, this is a marathon, it is not a sprint. Make sure you are taking care of yourselves and those in your community as we go forward in this fight because it is gonna be a long, very hard road. But we need to keep fighting and we need to keep showing up. So, with that, make sure you're taking care of yourselves this week and I will see y'all next week. [music outro] If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com or you can find us on social media. We're at @RePROsFightBack on Facebook and Twitter or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and wanna make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you wanna make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all!