02-10-2019, 12:34 AM
Quote:But that year, as one of his first acts as in office, President Trump banned federal aid for international organizations that so much as talk about abortion. So Family Health Options had to decide: stop offering abortion referrals and education to patients in need, or lose $2 million in international aid. “It was a catastrophe,” Melvine Ouyo, a nurse and then a Family Health Options clinic director in Nairobi, said. Ultimately, her organization decided it couldn’t sacrifice the quality of care it provides to patients and refused to agree to the Trump administration’s new stipulations. “As someone who has ethically declared that I will provide these services, I don’t discriminate against which service to provide and which not to provide.” Ouyo said. “As long as the patient comes to me seeking my help, I can provide it.”New Data Shows How the U.S. Ban on Global Funds for Abortion Spectacularly Backfires – Mother Jones
Soon, the organization’s 16 clinics began to run out of contraceptives. More women sought help for unplanned pregnancies. In August 2017, seven months after Trump’s policy was implemented, FHOK saw its first clinic close: a center in Mombasa that had provided free services to marginalized communities including drug addicts and sex workers. By then, the organization had also ceased most of its outreach efforts, which had brought care to another 76,000 women in remote parts of the country annually. Two more clinics were shuttered the following year, and those remaining saw staff numbers continue to drop drastically, Ouyo said. When she left the organization last May to pursue an advanced degree in reproductive health policy at Harvard, her closest clinic was staffed by a single nurse. “She would act as the pharmacist, the person in the lab, the person at reception, as well as the clinician to see the patients,” Ouyo said. “She was basically doing everything.”