Obama lifts gag rule for international family planning

Jan 24, 2009, 15:42 GMT

Washington - President Barack Obama on Friday lifted a ban that kept US funds from going to international family planning groups that perform abortions.

The policy prohibited international groups receiving US money for family planning services from either providing abortions or giving information about the procedure with funds from any source.

Opponents of the Bush administration policy had called it the 'global gag rule' because it effectively prohibited international non-governmental organizations from even discussing abortion or advocating for its legalization with their own money.

The ban was first instituted under former president Ronald Reagan, and was reinstated by George W Bush eight years ago after Bill Clinton had repealed the measure.

Obama signed the executive order in private, fulfilling a campaign promise that had been pushed for by abortion rights advocates.

For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate,' he said in a statement. It is time that we end the politicization of this issue.'

Obama called Bush's policy 'unnecessarily broad and unwarranted' and said his administration would reevaluate the US stance on family planning in coming weeks.

A day earlier on the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, he had reaffirmed his support of abortion rights, even as thousands of protestors had descended on the city for the March for Life.

'With the stroke of a pen, President Obama has lifted the stranglehold on women's health across the globe. His repeal of the global gag rule ends eight long years of policies that have blocked access to basic health care for women worldwide,' Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said in a statement.

'No longer will health care providers be forced to choose between receiving family planning funding and restricting the health care services they provide to women.'

But pro-life groups said it would lead to more abortions.

'This is the first in an anticipated series of attacks on longstanding pro-life policies, as the new administration pushes Obama's sweeping abortion agenda,' Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee said in a statement.

'President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control,' he said.

Obama's action, however, will not allow US funds to be used directly for abortions, which is prohibited under a separate law.