WASHINGTON — Stepping quickly into an abortion debate he largely avoided as a candidate, President Barack Obama on Friday overturned a controversial ban on U.S. support to international aid groups that provide abortion services around the world.
Reversing the so-called global gag rule was a top priority of abortion-rights supporters, who have long criticized the regulation as imperiling women’s health, particularly in developing nations.
The new president tried to cast his decision as a breakthrough in the decades-long debate over the federal government’s involvement in family planning.
“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,” Obama said. “It is time that we end the politicization of this issue.
“I have directed my staff to reach out to those on all sides of this issue to achieve the goal of reducing unintended pregnancies,” he said. “They will also work to promote safe motherhood, reduce maternal and infant mortality rates and increase educational and economic opportunities for women and girls.”
Obama also announced he would release federal funding for the United Nations Population Fund as soon as Congress makes it available, ensuring the United States renewed support for the U.N. family planning agency.
Abortion opponents immediately condemned the moves, however, criticizing them as the first part of what one critic called Obama’s “sweeping abortion agenda.”
President Ronald Reagan instituted the rule, also known as the “Mexico City Policy” in 1984, stating that the U.S. government would not contribute to groups that “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.”
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