Statement on the Mexico City Policy

Statement on the Mexico City Policy

January 23, 2001

Mr. President, I listened attentively to President Bush on Saturday, when he called on all Americans to unite in a spirit of civility and common purpose.

Those are sentiments we all share, and I for one intend to make every effort, guided by my conscience and my constituents, to work with the new administration for the good of the country.

I was also impressed by some of the things he said yesterday to his staff, about treating every person with decency and respect, and never taking the White House for granted. A White House staff that is not blinded by its own arrogance is always welcome, even if sometimes rare. These are important messages, and I commend the President for setting a tone of civility.

I also take the President at his word when he speaks of working together to unite the country. I assume he means that on issues that have long divided us, he and his administration will make a sincere effort to bring people together. That does not happen simply by making speeches. Actions speak louder than words, and yesterday President Bush, by Executive Order, with no prior consultation with Congress, reinstated the controversial Mexico City policy on international family planning.

The President explained his decision with these words:

"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. It is therefore my belief that the Mexico City Policy should be restored."

Mr. President, if current law did, in fact, permit taxpayer funds to be used to pay for or promote abortions overseas, the President might have a point. But it does not. Our law explicitly prohibits any U.S. funds from being used for abortion or to promote abortion.

That has been the law for as long as I can remember. It is already against the law to use taxpayer funds for those purposes, and someone should have told the President that.

The Mexico City policy goes much farther, which is why it is often called the "global gag rule." It prohibits taxpayer funds from being used to support private family planning organizations, like the International Planned Parenthood Federation, that use a small portion of their own private funds -- not taxpayer funds -- to provide advice, counseling, and information about abortions, and to advocate for safe abortion practices in countries where tens of thousands of women suffer injuries or die from complications from unsafe abortions.

The Mexico City policy would clearly violate the First Amendment if it were applied to family planning organizations in our own country. It would be illegal, and yet we impose it on those organizations when they work overseas, beyond the reach of our Constitution.

Proponents of the Mexico City policy maintain that it will reduce the number of abortions, but the reality is almost certainly the opposite. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, which will now be cut off from U.S. Government support, has used every tax dollar it received in the past to provide voluntary family planning services, like contraceptives, to couples who lack them.

Those contraceptives have prevented unwanted pregnancies, and, more than anything else, they have helped reduce the number of abortions. Now taxpayer funds to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, comprised of dozens of family planning organizations around the world, are cut off.

Mr. President, it is very unfortunate that on his first day in office, President Bush reinstated a divisive policy that not only does not do what he said it does, but will result in more unsafe abortions. As former Senator Mark Hatfield, who was fervently pro-life, said years ago during a debate on the Mexico City policy, "It is a proven fact that when contraceptive services are not available to women throughout the world, abortion rates increase. . . [The Mexico City policy] is unacceptable to me as someone who is strongly opposed to abortion."

President Bush's decision was not entirely unexpected. But one would have hoped that, after pledging to change the way we do business in Washington, and after years of successive congresses and administrations tying themselves in knots over this issue, his advisors would have taken the time to consult with the Congress about how to avoid the quagmire the Mexico City policy has produced in the past.

Would agreement have been possible? Perhaps not. There are strong passions on both sides of this issue. But President Bush has made much of his abilities as a consensus builder. Had he bothered to try, I believe he would have found a willingness to compromise.

Contrary to the President's statement and the press reports, this issue is about far more than abortion. It is about protecting the health of women in desperately poor countries, where more than half a million women die each year from complications related to pregnancy, and women have little control over their own lives and bodies.

It is also about politics. The Mexico City policy has been the cause of more political posturing, more press releases and fund raising letters, more debates, more votes, and more presidential vetoes than virtually any issue I can think of since it was first adopted in 1985.

When President Clinton reversed the Mexico City policy eight years ago, the Republican Congress responded by sharply cutting funding for voluntary family planning. The predictable, tragic result of that misguided, politically motivated act was an increase in the number of abortions, and of deaths of women from botched abortions.

Again, the evidence is indisputable that when family planning services are available, the number of abortions goes down. But that did not matter. Mexico City proponents cared more about making political points than preventing abortions or saving women's lives.

President Bush has made his decision. It was the wrong decision. Wrong because the Mexico City policy is not about taxpayer dollars, wrong because he ignored the bipartisan majority in the Senate that opposes the Mexico City policy, and wrong because it will likely result in more abortions, not less, in poor countries where abortions are often unsafe.

I do appreciate that the administration has said it will provide the full $425 million the Congress appropriated for family planning this year. That is critically important, and we should work together to increase that level for 2002. But by reinstating the Mexico City policy, by cutting off support for some of the most effective organizations involved in family planning and women's health, the President has set us on a collision course. We can now expect extended debates that we have all heard countless times before, votes to repeal the policy, vetoes of appropriations bills, and on and on.

I hope this is not what the President meant when he spoke of working together. We can do better. We must do better, if we are going to avoid the pitfalls that have divided us in the past and do what is best for the country.