BBC News (Link) (January 24, 2009)
US President Barack Obama has lifted a ban on federal funding for foreign family planning agencies that promote or give information about abortion.
The US is one of the biggest supporters of family planning programmes globally, but former president George W Bush blocked funds for abortion services. Powerful anti-abortion groups in the US have criticised the lifting of the ban. But aid agencies welcomed the move, saying it would promote women's health, especially in developing countries.
A White House spokesman said Mr Obama signed the executive order without asking for coverage by the media late on Friday afternoon. The issue of abortion services remains controversial in the US, pitting pro-life conservative groups against more liberal, pro-choice Americans who back a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. The BBC's Richard Lister in Washington says this may be why President Obama signed the order with so little fanfare.
Highly contentious
Organisations that had pressed Mr Obama to make the abortion-ban change were jubilant. They called the funding ban the "gag rule" because it cuts funds to groups that advocate or lobby for the lifting of abortion restrictions.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America hailed the president for "lifting the stranglehold on women's health across the globe with the stroke of a pen." "No longer will health care providers be forced to choose between receiving family planning funding and restricting the health care services they provide to women," the organization said in a statement.
But anti-abortion groups were quick to criticise the reversal of the funding ban. "President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
A 1973 decision by the US Supreme Court legalised abortion. A Gallup poll conducted last year showed that 54% of Americans think abortion should be allowed under certain circumstances, 28% believe it should be legal under any circumstances, while 17% back a total ban.
See-saw issue
The policy has become a see-saw issue between Republican and Democratic administrations. Former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, repealed the policy when he took office in 1993 and George W Bush reinstated it in 2001. The ruling is also known as the Mexico City Policy, because it was first introduced at a UN conference there in 1984 by former Republican President Ronald Reagan.
In a move related to the lifting of the abortion rule, Mr Obama is also expected to restore funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in the next budget, the AP news agency reported.
The Bush administration contended that the fund's work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilisation, claims the UNFPA has vehemently denied. (Stephen Moore writes on this in 1999)
In a separate move earlier on Friday, US regulators cleared the way for the world's first study on human embryonic stem cell therapy. (Read about it here) While the decision of the US Food and Drug Administration is independent of White House control, Mr Obama is widely expected to adopt a more pragmatic and science-oriented approach to stem cell research.
Rather than talk about the real issues, the terms "health care" and "choice" are tossed around to make it sound less horrible than it is. My issue is abortion on demand, which has no health implications and is simply the "choice" of the mother to kill her baby, which is now being funded by taxpayer dollars will not bode well for our nation I think.
From Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States, "Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner." (Finer LB et al., Reasons U.S. women have abortions: quantitative and qualitative perspectives, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005, 37(3):110–118.) They also site statistics showing a four times higher incident rate among women below the national poverty level.
I think the problem has more to do with changes in society that began after WWII and flared in the 60s leading to the society we have today of greater and younger promiscuity. It's actually been happening over a long time, but our society has turned away from God's ways and focuses more on self gratification, whether it be in the area of sex or other things like wealth or power. Actions always have consequenses and I believe there is a reason God laid down the laws He did because a turning away from those laws leads to the kind of consequences we have today with so many potential lives being snuffed out for convenience sake.
I believe there is also a desire to control the populations by those who also want to set up a system of global governance for many reasons, among them being that smaller populations are more manageable. Ultimately though I think this is another working of the mystery of iniquity and when we look at this with Biblical glasses on, we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and the spirit behind destruction of life is the same spirit that desires the demise of the human race with him, working with pride, "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Galatians 5:19-21
Some of these characteristics of the "flesh" are the very things that bring women to the point of putting their own comfort and desires above the life of their would-be child. I just wish that the actions of sex weren't so closely related in the secular world with love, which God defines as selfless. John 15:12-17 In our secular humanist world though it is always a physical focus. In a loving marriage the consequenses of sex are positive, not viewed as a personal inconvenience and discarded.
I'm in no place to judge however. I realize there are cases of the mother's life being in jeopardy or other cases, but I must point out what I see in God's Word as I try to abide and guide with it because while I cannot judge we all will be and as our tax dollars are pumped into programs that destroy created life I pray God forgives us all. It ultimately comes down to personal choice and God knows the reality of every situation and is just. I just thank God that the lives eliminated are in His hands ultimately and are not forsaken as we give them up. I pray our society starts to look upon others, including the unborn, with compassion that values our existence as God values it.
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