'Mexico City Policy' rescinded by Obama

President Obama's recent executive orders have been accompanied by much fanfare. As expected, he's changing policy -- from anti-terror measures to lobbyist restrictions -- but one executive order, signed behind closed doors, was the rescinding of the "Mexico City Policy."

The "Mexico City Policy" is the government policy first implemented by the Reagan administration, which takes away government aid from family planning groups that present abortion as an option.

With the stroke of a pen, the U.S. government is once again funding abortions overseas with taxpayer dollars. This issue has been a point of contention in the long and on-going debate about abortion in this country. As a pro-life American, I oppose rescinding this rule, and I disagree with organizations using aid money to fund abortion as part of family planning programs.

There are many reasons for opposition to the "Mexico City Policy." President Clinton said, when he rescinded the policy in 1993 (it was later reinstated by President Bush in 2001), that the policy was "too broad" and that it undermined family planning efforts throughout the world.

Critics feel that the policy actually causes women in developing countries to die. Because they lack access to legal abortions, they choose unsafe abortion methods that can lead to fatal health complications.

These major criticisms, however, do not hold up. The Web site for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops helps to answer these assertions:

International aid groups appropriate millions of dollars every year for family planning programs. Groups still engage women in developing countries and provide them with family planning services. The rule simply contends that groups change their policies to exclude abortion as a method of family planning to receive the funding.

Furthermore, groups such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation have continued to operate. They simply make up their lost funds by raising private donations.

Under the policy, groups still provide life-saving care to women in developing countries through a "health of the mother" exception to the rule.

Access to better healthcare, more health professionals and better medicines will help decrease pregnancy-related deaths. Groups were not restricted from providing care to women who suffered "botched" abortions, and a few years after the policy was first implemented, a study showed that there was no significant increase in illegal or self-performed abortions.

Finally, international aid groups have continued to help the poor around the world under the "Mexico City Policy." In fact, many developing nations have severe restrictions against abortion, and many women in these countries do not seek it as a means of family planning.

I feel the need to speak out against this decision because I simply disagree with it. Being pro-life, I do not feel the government should fund something that I am against with my tax money. However, many feel I shouldn't even bring up this issue. In a recent exchange on CNN, D.L. Hughley lamented that these kinds of issues were just used to "divide Americans" and were ultimately not important.

His conservative guest Bay Buchanan rightly spoke up and countered with, who was he to dictate what a woman should care or not care about?

It is obvious that the new president is adamantly pro-choice. Why are his stances not considered divisive? Why, in this new environment, is it pro-life positions that are only considered divisive?

If Obama really seeks to heal divides in this country, he cannot count out pro-life Americans.

This writer can be contacted at opinion@theeastcarolinian.com.