"Mexico City Policy" Expanded, Clarified.(international organizations that support abortion are denied U.S. family planning grants)

When President George W. Bush took office in 2001, the newly elected pro-life President restored an initiative begun by pro-life President Ronald Reagan in 1985 and negated by pro-abortion President Bill Clinton in 1993.

It is commonly known as the "Mexico City Policy" and requires all international organizations seeking U.S. funding for family planning to certify that they "neither perform nor actively promote" abortion as a method of family planning in other nations. The order meant that international organizations which supported abortion either by actually performing abortions, promoting abortion as a "family planning" option, or lobbying foreign governments to change their protective abortion laws would be barred from receiving federal family planning money. That prohibition applied whether the organizations used the U.S. money in these activities or their own.

The 2001 executive order was directed to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which at the time was a major conduit through which international family planning money was funneled. However, now much of the funding is administered directly by the State Department.

But as a result of a new executive order issued by President Bush on August 30, 2003, the Mexico City Policy now applies to all population programs funded by the State Department, not just those funded through the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Bush wrote, "Because family ...