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Bush's ban on family-planning aid is divisive
Thursday, January 25, 2001
President Bush, a self-proclaimed uniter, didn't wait a single day to wade into the most divisive issue in American politics - abortion.
In one of his first actions as president, he took the nation back to the future by reinstating the gag rule on international family planning funds that had been in place when his father left office in 1993. Any organization that provides abortions or counsels a woman on the availability of abortion or lobbies its government on the subject of abortion will be ineligible for U.S. family planning dollars.
For the anti-abortion activists who helped him reach office, Mr. Bush's executive order was fraught with symbolism, coming as it did on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
The benefit from Mr. Bush's point of view is that it is payback with minimal political fallout. While abortion rights advocates will be up in arms, and legitimately so, the action doesn't have any direct impact on the lives of American women. Their right to choose remains intact.
The adverse effects will be felt abroad. Organizations that do not agree to be gagged will refuse the funds and thus limit their ability to deliver the life-saving health-care and family planning services that the dollars buy. The result will be more women infected with preventable diseases, more unplanned pregnancies, more maternal deaths and, ironically, more abortions.