The Family Planning Association of Nepal (FPAN), the country's biggest non-governmental organisation has cause for concern. FPAN officials are worried that US President George Bush's resurrection of the Global Gag Rule (Mexico City Policy of 1984), which bars foreign organisations from using US aid to advocate abortion law reforms, may affect reproductive and family planning services the association provides to thousands of couples in Nepal.

Nearly fifteen percent of the organisation's annual funding comes from the US government, and FPAN officials fear they may have to downsize and shut down three model family planning clinics because the US has said it wont deliver the promised allocations for fiscal 2001.

Nepal, which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world-539 of 100,000 live births, fifty percent due to unsafe abortions-has refused to comply with the Gag Rule. While FPAN officials are looking for alternate sources of funding, they are also hoping that the Global Democracy Promotion Act recently passed by the US Senate will block the US government from implementing the Gag Rule.