Obama’s New Budget Contains Massive Funding of Abortion, Planned Parenthood

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Feb 2, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Obama’s New Budget Contains Massive Funding of Abortion, Planned Parenthood

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 2
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — President Barack Obama released his FY 2011 budget on Monday and it contains provisions that will force Americans to pay for abortions in the United States and promoting abortion abroad. The budget takes advantage of Congress having overturned the ban on abortion funding in the nation’s capital.

Obama’s FY 2010 budget contained a new policy allowing public funding for abortion in the District of Columbia and Congress eventually approved overturning the Dornan amendment that had long banned funding.

Page 1248 of Obama’s proposed budget requests that public funding for abortion in the District of Columbia be continued.

As was the case last year, the Obama budget also proposes overturning another ban on abortion funding — concerning the Legal Services Corporation.

Congress has previously approved budgets that retain a long-standing prohibition on the Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal help to lower-income Americans, providing legal counseling to any person or entity “that participates in any litigation with respect to abortion.”

Page 1284 of the proposed budget Obama submitted to Congress includes a change to that law that would result in LSC funds going to people or groups that engage in abortion litigation provided that LSC funds are not used directly for the litigation.

Still, the concern for pro-life advocates is that the money is fungible and LSC is essentially reimbursed for providing legal advice and support for people or groups that are in lawsuits related to obtaining abortions.

Obama proposed this pro-abortion funding in his previous budget but members of Congress agreed on retaining the current abortion funding ban.

Obama’s budget also continues funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) which promotes abortion worldwide and has worked hand-in-hand with the population control officials in China who have promoted forced abortions and sterilizations to enforce their one-child family planning policy.

Current law called Kemp-Kasten states that no funds may be made available to any organization or program that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

However, the Obama administration reversed a ruling by the Bush administration stating that the UNFPA violated this law by working with the Chinese officials.

The proposed budget retains the Kemp-Kasten provision, but does not apply it to the UNFPA.

On page 918, the Obama budget deletes conditions on UNFPA funding if Kemp-Kasten is not applied. That makes it so millions of dollars of taxpayer funds will flow to the UNFPA without current reporting and accounting requirements.

As a result, U.S. contributions to UNFPA will be used for activities in China and the UNFPA may receive taxpayer funding even if they pay for abortion."

The Obama administration also proposed deleting UNFPA funding conditions in the proposed FY10 budget, but Congress retained the conditions in the last budget it adopted.

Obama’s budget also proposes large increases in the already massive funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business receives.

The FY 2010 budget funds the Title X family planning program, which sends large sums of money to Planned Parenthood, at $317,491,000. On page 461, the Obama administration requests an increase of roughly $10 million for a total of $327,356,000 for Title X.

Also, the 2010 budget provides $648,457,000 for family planning/reproductive health on an international scale — which also sends massive amounts of tax dollars to Planned Parenthood. The FY11 budget request does not specify a funding level for international family planning but the amount is not expected to be lowered and could be increased by Congress.

ACTION: Contact your member of the House at https://www.House.gov and urge opposition to the Obama budget because of its abortion funding. You can also call 202-224-3121 to reach any House member.

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