Obama to reverse Mexico City Policy today

January 23, 2009

President Barack Obama will sign an executive order today reversing the Mexico City Policy instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Despite widespread media predictions, President Obama did not reverse the Mexico City Policy yesterday, the anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. President Bill Clinton had rescinded the policy on January 22, 1993; President George W. Bush had restored the policy on January 22, 2001.

Cardinal Francis George noted in a recent letter to the president, “The Mexico City Policy, first established in 1984, has wrongly been attacked as a restriction on foreign aid for family planning. In fact, it has not reduced such aid at all, but has ensured that family planning funds are not diverted to organizations dedicated to performing and promoting abortions instead of reducing them. Once the clear line between family planning and abortion is erased, the idea of using family planning to reduce abortions becomes meaningless, and abortion tends to replace contraception as the means for reducing family size. A shift toward promoting abortion in developing nations would also increase distrust of the United States in these nations, whose values and culture often reject abortion, at a time when we need their trust and respect.”

 

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Further information:

• Obama bides time on abortion measure (Politico)
• US bishops to Obama: Don’t roll back pro-life policies (CWN)