Obama backs international family-planning programs again.

Obama breaks Bush policy: president Barack Obama will fully back again the international family-planning programs

WASHINGTON -23-1-2009 - By LAURA MECKLER

President Barack Obama quietly overturned the "global gag rule" Friday, allowing U.S. foreign-aid dollars to flow again to international family-planning programs that offer abortion or advocate for abortion rights.

He also said he would work to restore funding for the United Nations Population Fund, which pays for similar family-planning programs in a wider range of countries. And he vowed to search for common ground between people on both sides of the issue.

Supporters say that funding contraception helps women plan their families and prevents unwanted pregnancies, reducing the need for abortion. Opponents say it will allow for backdoor taxpayer support of abortion.



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Abortion-rights backers and opponents faced off in Washington Thursday. President Obama will wait to announce a restoration of funds for overseas groups involved in abortion until after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
These policies have been political footballs, with U.S. policy changing depending on which party controls the White House.

Mr. Obama said in a statement that it is time to move past "this stale and fruitless debate" and that his administration will initiate a "fresh conversation" about family planning in coming weeks.

"For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue," he said.

In acting Friday, he was carrying out a campaign promise to change the policy, but doing so in a way aimed at lowering the heat around the issue. He signed a memorandum changing the policy privately and didn't release it until Friday evening. That contrasts with other policy changes this week, on lobbying and national security, which he signed before cameras and invited guests at midday.

Mr. Obama also chose not to issue the policy change on Thursday, the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, a day that is highly charged, particularly for abortion opponents.

The president took two actions Friday. First, he lifted restrictions on international organizations that accept funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Under the Bush administration, agencies that accepted the funding couldn't advocate, counsel, refer or offer abortion, even if they used money that came from other sources. As a result, many organizations opted out of the program.

In 2007, the agency spent $450 million on family planning and reproductive-health programs in more than 65 countries, such as making contraception more widely available. The Obama policy change does nothing to increase the dollars available, but makes them available to a wider range of grantees.

Mr. Obama also said he would work with Congress to restore U.S. funding for the U.N. Population Fund. Mr. Bush, like his Republican predecessors, concluded that the fund supported China's one-child policy and therefore, under U.S. law, wasn't eligible for taxpayer funding. Supporters of the fund say that it isn't involved in the China policy and point to studies that back them up.

Congress has consistently appropriated funding for the agency, all of which was diverted by the Bush administration to other programs. Advocates calculate that a total of $235 million since 2002 has been withheld from the U.N. program, which serves about 150 nations.

The policy change was welcomed by women's health advocates, but many abortion opponents said it amounts to taxpayer-funded abortion.

"He is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.

Advocates of the change said that the most experienced groups, including many affiliated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, will now be eligible again for funding.

Many of these agencies have large networks in tough-to-reach areas, are well respected locally and have the strongest track record, said Tod Preston, a lobbyist for Population Action International, a research and advocacy organization.

"President Obama has lifted the stranglehold on women's health across the globe," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The move, she said, "ends eight long years of policies that have blocked access to basic health care for women world-wide."

Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com

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