Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey is asking the rules committee to approve a bi- partisan amendment that would restore the "Mexico City Policy". That's the U. S. policy that requires all non-governmental organizations that receive federal funding to refrain from performing abortions. President Obama reversed the policy by executive order shortly after taking office. Here's Rep. Smith's testimony to the Rules Committee.
Smith-Stupak-Sensenbrenner-Jordan Amendment to Restore the Mexico City Policy
I respectfully request that an amendment, co-sponsored by Mr. Stupak, Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Jordan, and me, be made in order under the rule so that the full House has the opportunity to vote up or down on a critically important issue.
This year’s Foreign Ops appropriations bill increases population control funding by a whopping 40 percent over the FY2008 levels to a record $648 million.
Our amendment would simply ensure that the huge allocation of tax-payer grant money not be awarded to foreign nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that perform abortion or lobby for abortion on demand in developing countries.
In other words, our amendment seeks to direct funds to family planning services, not abortion.
Prior to January, the pro-life Mexico City Policy guaranteed, to the extent possible, that unborn children in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere not be put at risk of death by the NGOs we fund.
Every human life is precious and sacred and worthy of respect. No one is expendable.
Thus family planning funds, and the NGOs they empower, can’t be the Trojan horse for the global abortion industry. If we allow that, President Obama’s talk of wanting to reduce abortions either at home or abroad will be reduced to cheap political sophistry.
Americans clearly agree with our efforts to reinstate the Mexico City Policy. Even while largely agreeing with his other executive orders, the Gallup Poll found that by a margin of almost two fold, 65 percent to 35 percent, Americans opposed President Obama’s executive order reversing the Reagan-era Mexico City Policy.
And of course they would. The United Sates is clearly trending pro-life—ultrasound technology has shattered the myth that an unborn child is not a person.
Stripped of the euphemisms, abortion is violence against children and also harms women emotionally and physically.
Abortion methods either dismember the fragile bodies of a baby to death, or poison the infant, or chemically induce premature labor—leaving the immature child unable to cope with his or her new environment.
We often work to reduce infant mortality, and that is a wonderful and necessary goal.
Can we not see or appreciate or understand that abortion is infant mortality?
An unborn child’s immaturity or dependence shouldn’t mitigate, negate, or nullify an unborn child’s inherent humanity.
Human rights ought to be about inclusion, especially for the weakest and most vulnerable, not exclusion.
Finally, can we not see or appreciate or understand that birth is an event—not the beginning of life—and that the stunning breakthrough over the last three decades in treating unborn children who are diagnosed with a disease or disability only bring into sharp focus that the child in the womb can be a patient as well?