White House Sacks Pro-Life USAID Admin, Prepares Obama’s Pro-Abortion Policy
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 27, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The White House has sacked the pro-life administrator for the USAID foreign assistance program so the agency can begin implementing President Barack Obama’s pro-abortion policies. The move follows Obama rescinding the Mexico City Policy to allow taxpayer funding of groups that promote abortions overseas.
Today, the White House announced that it has it has replaced Kent Hill, the acting Administrator of USAID under President Bush.
Hill has been replaced with Alonzo Fulgham, the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Secretary of the agency and will head up the Office of the Administrator of USAID until a permanent successor is named.
Hill had been a friend of the pro-life movement in overseeing the Mexico City Policy.
He held weekly phone calls with Rep. Chris Smith, the leading pro-life Congressman who has fought for limits on international abortion funding. Hill also worked closely with Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, a pro-life group that lobbies at the United Nations.
Meanwhile, the USAID office issued a statement Monday indicating that it is implementing the reversal of the Mexico City Policy.
"USAID is implementing this change immediately and issued an official notice informing its field offices worldwide," the agency said in the statement LifeNews.com obtained. "Additional specific guidance for USAID agreements officers will be issued later today."
"His announcement directed USAID to immediately waive the policy’s conditions in any current grants; notify current grantees, as soon as possible, that these conditions have been waived; and cease imposing these conditions in any future grants," the agency said.
That means USAID will immediately send notice to Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International, two abortion businesses that refused to comply with the previous rules under President Bush restricting foreign aid to non-abortion activities, that they are now eligible for funding.
The agency said it is "strongly committed to achieving" Obama’s goals of shifting family planning dollars to groups that promote and perform abortions and said it supported repealing the pro-life protections.
"Repealing the Mexico City Policy will help improve the lives of mothers and children through increased access to family planning services and supplies," it claimed.
In fiscal year 2008, USAID programmed $457 million for family planning activities.
ACTION: Contact President Obama and complain about rescinding the Mexico City Policy. You can do so by going to https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
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