On January 23, President Barack Obama overturned restrictions on funding abortions overseas. The Mexico City Policy, which denied federal funding of private organizations that perform and promote abortions, was rescinded by an executive order.
Here we have a black president taking money from the taxpayers in a time of economic crisis and giving it to organizations—many of which are anti-Catholic—so they can spend it on killing non-white babies in Third World nations. And Obama is known as a progressive.
Obama has said repeatedly that he is not pro-abortion, and some Catholics salivating for a job in his administration believe him. Yet, in office for only a few days, one of the first things he decided to do was fund abortion. That would be on par with someone who said he was in favor of gun control and then provided funds to the National Rifle Association. Indeed, no one spends money to support that which he really abhors. We said that it’s time for the pro-abortion crowd to simply say that whatever reservations they may have about abortion (and some have none at all), they are outweighed by their overall support for it.
Obama’s executive order came only days after the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops made public a letter it sent to Obama asking him to retain the Mexico City Policy.
It soon became clear that Obama’s decision to overturn the Mexico City Policy was unpopular among the American people. The results of a Gallup poll taken in early February asked the American people how they viewed some of the president’s early decisions: his lowest support was on the issue of funding abortion. Three out of four Americans agreed with him on four of the issues asked about, and two-thirds supported him on another; there were two issues he failed to receive majority approval (the closing of Gitmo and abortion funding).
Only 35 percent of Americans polled said they agreed with President Obama on the following issue: “Allowing U.S. funding for overseas family planning organizations that provide abortions.”
After we found out about this poll, we contacted all members of the 111th Congress notifying them that the American people do not want their money spent paying for someone’s abortion.
This issue has drastic consequences given the fact that not only did Obama overturn the Mexico City Policy and he’s promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, the most sweeping and radical abortion-rights legislation ever written, but also because Obama promised to restore U.S. funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a pro-abortion agency.
On January 24, Obama said, “I look forward to working with Congress to restore U.S. financial support for the U.N. Population Fund.” He pledged to do this “in the coming weeks,” maintaining that, “It is time that we end the politicization of this [abortion] issue.”
UNFPA claims that it is not a pro-abortion organization, rather it states that it merely supports “reproductive rights.” This isn’t exactly true. Starting in 1979, in the first five years of China’s draconian one-child policy, UNFPA gave the program $50 million. To accomplish this goal over the years, which is still ongoing, IUDs have been forced into the wombs of hundreds of millions of women against their will. Indeed, no coercive method is considered taboo, including forced abortion. It was for reasons like these that in 2002 the U.S. State Department blasted China for its affront to human rights. Indeed, Secretary Colin Powell backed the Bush administration’s denial of funds to UNFPA.
The one-child policy has abetted female infanticide, so much so that there has been a massive decrease in the female population—there are now an estimated 350 million girls missing from China. Other non-white areas of the world where UNFPA concentrates its efforts include Vietnam, Nigeria and Peru. But it can be multicultural: When the genocidal maniac from Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, wanted to tame his people, he invited UNFPA to help reduce the population of Kosovo; he wasn’t unhappy with the results, nor, of course, the means.
Obama’s ironies are endless. He wants to bankroll UNFPA and fund abortion overseas, all while claiming that he is not pro-abortion. Hopefully he and the rest of Congress will listen to the American people and spend less time catering to the extremists at Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
