DOES REALITY MATCH THE RHETORIC?

On January 22, 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive memorandum directing the Administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) "to reinstate in full all of the requirements of the Mexico City Policy in effect on January 19, 1993." Critics in the abortion industry have claimed and suggested that this policy will do everything from increase the spread of AIDS in Africa and the incidence of teen pregnancies in Europe to stifling free speech rights worldwide.

Does the reality match the rhetoric? Hardly.

In 1984, at a population conference in Mexico City, the Reagan Administration announced it would terminate USAID population control funding for any organizations that were involved in abortion activities, whether with U.S. or private funds. On his first day in office, President Clinton revoked this Mexico City Policy and began funding international abortion groups.

In fiscal year 2000, Congress enacted a compromise Mexico City Policy where groups receiving USAID population control money were required to certify they would not perform abortions, violate the laws of their host country on abortion, or lobby to change a country’s abortion laws. Under this law, groups who refused to certify and continued to promote or perform abortions were allowed to receive funds, but such funds could not total more than $15 million of the $372.5 million funding.

• In all, 448 groups agreed to abide by the compromise Mexico City Policy in FY2000. Ultimately, only 9 international abortion groups refused to agree to the policy, and yet they still received $8.4 million in federal taxpayer funds. International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) received $5 million and the World Health Organization (WHO) received roughly $2.5 million.

In other words, approximately 2% of international family planning grantees (9 out of 457) have such severe objections to the Mexico City Policy that they may refuse U.S. funding all together for FY01. And while abortion providers and promoters have loud voices often magnified by their friends in the media, in FY2000, only a small portion — 2.25% of the total budget of international population control ($8.4 million of $372.5 million) — was distributed to groups that admit to performing or promoting abortions.

Thus, while President George W. Bush’s executive order may have an impact on those groups that perform or promote abortion worldwide (by cutting off their US funding stream), it should not dramatically affect the international population control program as a whole.

"IB96206: Population Assistance and Family Planning Programs, " CRS, January 23, 2001.