Egypt: U.S. Policy Imperils Egypt's Family-Planning Push

A $28 million Tahseen Project (Tahseen means "improvement" in Arabic) is empowering women to take charge of family planning issues in Egyptian villages. The year-old program is scheduled to last through 2007, and eventually encompass seven rural governorates. But reproductive health programs are being phased out at the U.S. Agency for International Development, in response to pressure for more emphasis on abstinence-only for contraception education and the Bush administration's reinstatement of the so-called Global Gag Rule, a policy lifted by President Bill Clinton. It bars U.S. family planning assistance to any foreign health care agency that uses funds from any source to perform abortions, provide counselling and referral for abortion or lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their country.