A group of 28 senators sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Thursday, urging him to reconsider how the United States implements the Helms Amendment, an act that restricts funding for women’s reproductive health around the world. Specifically, the group of mostly Democratic lawmakers asked the president to lift informal restrictions on funding for abortion services following reports of sexual violence and even sexual slavery by militant groups around the world.
“Although the Helms Amendment prevents U.S. foreign aid from being used to perform abortions for family planning purposes,” they wrote, “for over 40 years it has been incorrectly interpreted to prevent the use of foreign aid to fund safe abortions even in the cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment.”
Along with many women’s health organizations and even religious leaders generally opposed to abortion rights, the senators believe that the Helms Amendment has been applied overly stringently since it was enacted in 1973.
“No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions,” the Amendment reads.
Allowing women who have been raped by militant groups like ISIS or Boko Haram to terminate their pregnancies falls outside of the purview of “family planning,” the senators argued. Their letter opened:
The senators have urged the president to expand access to abortion services, especially as rape is being used as a deliberate tactic of control for many militant groups. They said that the U.S. could help women receive access to abortion services in countries where they are legal. Their letter continued:
Research into ISIS’ internal communications suggests that sexual violence is “enshrined in the group’s core tenets.” Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 women and 9 girls who escaped from ISIS in April, and found that half of them had been raped.
Similarly, Boko Haram is believed to rape women and girls “as a deliberate strategy to dominate rural residents and create a new generation of Islamist militants.” The ISIS-linked group has raped hundreds of women and girls, some of them repeatedly.
Many migrants from Syria, Iraq, and other countries have raped as they make the dangerous journey towards what they believe will be safety in Western and Northern Europe. Women in girls have also been raped in refugee camps where they have sought refuge in Germany.