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Trump's 'global gag rule on steriods' threatens Congolese clinics



"Planification Familiale c'est la cle dela prosperite de votre famille." 
The message, which translated from French means “family planning is the key to your family's prosperity,” was printed in blue, block letters on the wall of a small reproductive health clinic in Lubumbashi, a city in the southeastern strip of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Empty boxes of birth control pills were piled nearby in a corner.
The last of the day’s patients, two women seemingly barely in their 20s, waited in a dimly lit room inside the cinder block building that serves the needs of Lubumbashi’s poorest.
Jeannine Assani, regional coordinator for ABEF (or Association pour le Bien-Etre Familial/Naissances Désirables), the Congolese reproductive health organization that runs things at this clinic, was concerned about her organization’s ability to continue its work providing free contraception, gynecological exams and family planning education because its funding has been reduced as a result of the Trump administration’s reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, known as the "global gag rule."

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