Bush Overturns Clinton Abortion Order -- Signs Anti-Abortion Order
Front Page Magazine--Jan. 23, 2001
Associated Press at 5:23 PM
On Monday's anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, President Bush signed a memorandum reinstating the full abortion restrictions on U.S. overseas aid that his father and former President Reagan had instituted before him.
"It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion either here or abroad," Bush wrote in his executive memorandum to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which oversees family-planning aid to foreign countries.
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 22, 2001; 1:00 PM
Wasting no time in putting his stamp on the the contentious issue of abortion, President Bush today reinstated a ban on federal funding for groups that provide abortion counseling overseas.
Speaking briefly to reporters in the White House earlier in the afternoon, Bush said he "soon" would issue an order reinstating the so-called Mexico City policy, which President Reagan announced in 1984 and which remained in place until President Clinton overturned it in his second day in office. The policy bars U.S. aid to overseas family-planning programs that include abortion counseling.
Confirmation of Bush's plans, first reported in today's Washington Post, came as opponents of abortion rights are converging on Washington on the 28th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade court decision, which legalized abortion. Bush issued a statement for the protesters, saying: "We share a great goal: to work toward a day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law. We know this will not come easily, or all at once."
Bush aides also said the new administration will revisit the federal government's recent approval of the abortion-inducing drug RU-486.
Conservative groups applauded Bush's comments, but abortion-rights organizations denounced them, saying many Americans may be surprised by Bush's strong opposition to abortion.
"He clearly is demonstrating he intends to forcefully use his presidential powers to restrict women's reproductive rights," said Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League. "He certainly has shed his cloak of moderation. It's astonishing how quickly."
Michelman acknowledged that activists had expected Bush to reinstate the Reagan-era funding policy, which was announced at an international population conference in Mexico City. But a larger, more troubling picture of anti-abortion-rights enthusiasm emerges, she said, because that decision coincides with the comments about RU-486 plus the nominations of two prominent abortion-rights opponents: John D. Ashcroft as attorney general and Tommy Thompson at Health and Human Services.
"It's the cumulative impact of his actions" that's worrisome, Michelman said. "Anyone who voted for him thinking he was going to be passive on a woman's right to choose is going to be sorely mistaken."
Joe Andrew, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said the new president is showing that he's more attentive to his staunchly conservative supporters than to the moderates he also courted.
"He gives this very nice speech on Saturday, but his actions speak much more loudly, and it's right foot forward, right foot forward," Andrew said. "This is a pretty quick about face, to go from Saturday to Monday."
Also today, the White House announced that Bush's first foreign trip will take place on Feb. 16. He will visit Mexican President Vicente Fox at Fox's family ranch in San Cristobal, in central Mexico. |
