Mexican City Policy Pt.2

When speaking about the Mexican City Policy, or Global Gag Rule, it is very easy to be opinionated. The democratic side is by far a side that supports the freedom of choice for women and fully supports the pro-choice movement. Many democratic articles are much more critical to our republican president, Donald Trump. The other side is the republican half, which is very clearly pro-life, meaning that they do not support abortion in any way. I believe that this is why it was created by a republican president, repealed by a democratic president, then once again reinstated by a republican president in 2017. I do believe that sources from more moderate sides support the same basic argument over and over. When looking at a democratic article, you will see many negative comments. One always being that Trump and his team (who are all white males) are taking away women’s reproductive rights. This is a very broad overstatement, Trump is not taking away a woman’s right to reproduce and he is not belittling women. Most of what the democratic sites post are sentences taken out of context, but are posted to make the audience think that he is saying the statement outright.

Second I would suggest that republican sites tend to be a lot more factual based, they do tend to leave out pertinent information that would make Trump look bad to a public eye. Instead of saying how he makes the policy “worse” they say how he improves the issue, a lot of re-wording is used to say the same thing as the democratic sites, but obviously in support of Trump.  I found in my studies that a democratic article will give solid facts and information, but label Trump as a monster. They do this by using the media’s title for the policy “The Global Gag Rule” and that Trump is “disappointing” women. Republican articles take a different approach and state that Trump is “Making America Great Again” and supporting women by “protecting” their reproductive rights. Since I did a deep analysis on two articles in my first blog post, I took a lighter approach to reading into the two sides on these other articles.

For further evidence, I read a democratic statement released from genderhealth.org. The article is titled in big, bold letters “TRUMP MARKS FIRST WEEK IN OFFICE BY BETRAYING WOMEN”, which the article then goes on to say that this is a way to promote unsafe abortions and that it will not make the U.S. investments more effective. The company behind this letter goes on to say that the signing of this policy is Trump’s way of saying he and his administration are “ hostile to women, health, and science.” I also noticed that in more democratic articles, they use the name Trump, rather than President Trump, which can be found in every republican article I have read.  The article then goes on to say how “women will fight these kinds of Machiavellian policies at every turn.”

The second article I read was a republican leaning one by Thehill.com. The article was titled “Trump reinstates ban on US funding for abortion overseas” and was written by Jessie Hellmann. In this article, Hellmann did not convey any emotion towards the policy, she just used statements that showed clear support.  One of those statements being: "I applaud President Trump for taking this important action and look forward to continuing to work together in advancing pro-life policies and protecting taxpayer dollars.” This statement shows clear support of the newly reinforced law, rather than using pathos, like a democratic article. Republican articles tend to be fact based, and with a touchy subject like abortion they are very clear to show the benefits of pro-life in their statements, and by using facts that alleviate the preconceptions that are false about the policy that everybody believes to be true.

SOURCES:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/abortion/315652-trump-signs-executive-order-reinstating-global-gag-rule-on
http://www.genderhealth.org/files/uploads/Trumps_Global_Gag.pdf

Mexican City Policy

On this first day in office, Donald Trump signed the "Mexico City Policy". This policy is also known as the "Global Gag Rule" to insinuate taking away a woman's voice and freedom. The policy simply states that the United States will ban Federal money from going to international groups that either perform or provide any information about abortions. This policy is obviously going to be two sided, because everybody has a different stance on abortion.

The first article I read came from a democratic, or left leaning site, Slate. The site gave strict facts about the policy, and made it a point to call it the global gag rule, rather than the Mexican city policy. The author, Michelle Goldberg, starts out by saying it is the global gag rule on steroids. She states in her article that Trump did this very quietly, as his first order. The white house would not take any phone calls or announce it until later in the day, which was unusual. Her biggest argument that in the past, the policy meant that "foreign NGO's must disavow with any involvement with abortion in order to receive US funding." She then goes on to say that trump's version was a huge expansion for the worst, he expanded the policy to all global health funding. Goldberg then trails off in her article speaking about how research for aids will be affected. She then ends it using a quote from Ann Starrs, the president of the Guttmacher Institute. She makes it known that she and her staff fear the white men behind the desk, making decisions for them. Starrs tells Goldmann that she was not surprised that it was reinstated, but she was "truly shocked".  The author states that this order is not only bad for women, but bad for men as well. 

The second article I read was more republican, or right sided. The article came from Breitbart.com and was written by Dr. Susan Berry. Starting off this article may seem more appealing to many people because it uses ethos, because she is a doctor, it does not state if she is a medical doctor or a university doctorate, but the Dr. suffix before her name is somewhat clarifying. In this article, Berry opens up by stating 5 facts about the policy. It should be taken into consideration that she never calls it the global gag rule herself. The facts that she states are facts that are most commonly confused, like birth control not being affected by this policy.  She goes on to quote many different people throughout the article, which are all in support of Trump. There are positive quotes throughout the article stating that this is "A sign that America will be great again". This article also praises his expansion on the policy, rather than belittling it. Berry calls his expansion a modernized version of the policy. Towards the end of the article, she states a quote from Susan B. Anthony president Marjorie Dannenfelser. In his quote, Dannenfelser states that: "Thanks to President Trump, the Secretary of State is directed to ensure Americans are no longer complicit in violating the dignity of women and children overseas. No longer will abortion be a top U.S. export.”

Obviously after reading these two articles, they both have very different stances on Trump’s policy. You can tell by their rhetoric. The first article (left sided) uses pathos to appeal to the audience’s emotion. She uses Trump as the “Common Enemy” because those who would like that article, would not be Trump supporters. The second article is more factual, but in obvious support of Trump. This is speaking to an audience that already has his support. 

Sources:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/23/five-facts-president-trump-reinstating-mexico-city-policy-abortion/

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/trump_s_global_gag_rule_is_even_worse_than_it_seemed.html