One day a fellow PCV serving in Botswana reached out to me because she had noticed that I, too, was a vocal advocate for reproductive rights and an opponent of Trump's reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule, which bans employees of foreign aid organizations that receive any federal funding from even uttering the word "abortion." As PC volunteers, this policy directly affects us and many of the organizations we partner with around the world. And so we decided to team up and write an open letter to Mr. Trump - not necessarily with the intention of changing his mind, but with the idea that perhaps if we speak up now, the GGR will not be reinstated later. It was also pretty cathartic. We were able to garner the attention of some big-name publishing sites and collect over 700 signatures from PCVs and RPCVs working around the world. Then suddenly our momentum was slashed and we were halted in our tracks. The Peace Corps is an "apolitical" organization and therefore cannot allow its volunteers to speak out about political issues, we were told. (I often forget that a woman's body is a political battleground and as such any opinion regarding abortion, no matter how informed by empirical data, is seen as inherently political.) So threatened with "administrative separation" (aka being kicked out) and effectively silenced, we were not able to publish our letter on a more attention-grabbing scale. We decided instead to share with family and friends on a more low-key level. If you'd like to take the time, you can find the letter below. Please keep in mind that the words "Peace Corps" do not come up anywhere in the letter, and that is extremely intentional. The letter represents our thoughts as individuals and in no way reflects PC's apolitical take (or rather lack there of) on current events.
https://medium.com/@globalcitizens/gagged-by-the-past-u-s-development-workers-perspective-on-trump-s-global-gag-rule-b5b0a92c1c74#.318y4u9a5
