Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) writes on his blog about the policy implications of an Obama administration, with a special focus on restrictions on taxpayer funding for aboriton. DeMint raises two pro-life policies that abortion groups have in their sights:
Two of the targeted funding limitations are the Hyde Amendment and the Mexico City Policy. The Hyde Amendment, passed in 1976, prohibits Medicaid and other federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. Medicaid funded over 300,000 abortions in the year prior to the Hyde Amendment’s enactment. The Mexico City Policy was announced by President Reagan in 1984 and required nongovernmental organizations to agree as a condition of their receipt of federal funds that they would neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations. The Mexico City Policy was rescinded by President Clinton and then reinstated by President Bush in 2001. Unfortunately, it appears this policy may be one of the first executive orders to be rescinded by the new Obama Administration.
Taxpayer funds should never be used to pay for abortions or actively promote abortion, either at home or abroad. To remove these two abortion funding bans and allow billions of taxpayer dollars to flow to organizations performing or promoting abortions will only serve to increase the amount of abortions each year, contrary to Obama’s campaign promise.
It is unfortunate that in the middle of an economic crisis and despite declining numbers of abortions the new administration could decide that one of the first orders of business is to direct record amounts of taxpayer money to this controversial and morally reprehensible industry.
Read the full text of Senator DeMint’s post here.
If you haven’t already done so, join our Stop the Abortion Bailout! campaign to contact your Senators and urge them keep your tax dollars out of the hands of abortion providers. Already, dedicated pro-life activists just like you have sent over 70,000 letters to the U.S. Senate!
