President Barack Obama Forces Taxpayers to Fund, Promote Worldwide Abortions
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 23, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Barack Obama promised during the presidential campaign that he wanted to reduce abortions and said as much in a statement yesterday in association with the anniversary of Roe. Today, however, he betrayed that promise by forcing taxpayers to fund groups promoting and performing abortions overseas.
In an executive order, the president officially scrapped the Mexico City Policy that protected taxpayers from involvement in overseas abortions for eight years. Now, Obama will send hundreds of millions of dollars to groups that aggressively promote abortions on a worldwide scale.
Obama was slated to overturn on Thursday the protections President Bush put back in place following the Clinton administration, but Obama decided to wait.
He hoped his decision today to force taxpayers to fund foreign abortions will somehow make him seem less radical because he decided to wait until after the pro-life movement mourned the thirty-sixth anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
The executive order will make non-governmental groups that do abortions in other nations or lobby pro-life countries to overturn their abortion limits eligible for public funds.
During the Bush administration, such groups were prevented from receiving the family planning money or any aid through the State Department, if they would not back down from their pro-abortion agenda.
Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, emailed LifeNews.com about Obama’s decision.
He told LifeNews.com how the executive order will hurt non-abortion groups that provide medical care and services to women and families in foreign nations.
"One effect of Obama’s order will be to divert many millions of dollars away from groups that do not promote abortion, and into the hands of those organizations that are the most aggressive in promoting abortion in developing countries," he said.
"Obama’s order will predictably result in a redirection of funds to groups such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which are ideologically committed to the doctrine that abortion on demand must be universally available as a birth control method," Johnson said.
Johnson said pro-life advocates need to brace for more attacks on pro-life laws and measures.
"This is the first in an anticipated series of attacks on longstanding pro-life policies, as the new administration pushes Obama’s sweeping abortion agenda," he said. "That agenda includes repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which would result in tax-funded abortion as a birth control method in the U.S., and imposition of sweeping pro-abortion mandates on private employers through health-care reform legislation."
The two biggest abortion businesses in the world, the U.S.-based Planned Parenthood and the British-based Marie Stopes International, refused to stop doing abortions or trying to get nations to abandon their pro-life culture and heritage and refused to follow the pro-life rules and accept the funds.
Now, taxpayers will fund those abortion businesses and their abortion marketing campaigns.
In September, 2007, Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced an amendment to a spending bill that would have reversed the pro-life policy and the Senate approved it by a 53-41 percentage point margin.
The move didn’t take effect only because President Bush threatened to veto any spending bill that removed the Mexico City Policy — something Obama would unlikely do.
President Reagan first put the Mexico City Policy in place and it is named for a population conference that took place in the Mexican capital in 1984 when he introduced it.
President George H.W. Bush continued the pro-life policy, President Clinton overturned it, and President George W. Bush kept it for eight years and threatened to veto any Congressional spending bill reversing it.
Obama has already compiled what pro-life advocates consider to be a strong pro-abortion record because of key pro-abortion appointments such as Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and former staff of pro-abortion groups in top legal and health care-related spots.
ACTION: Contact President Obama and tell him you’re upset by his decision to send taxpayer funds to pro-abortion groups to promote or perform abortions. Go to https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
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