Politics
Friday June 22, 2007
House Democrats Pass Contraceptive Aid Funding for Developing Countries
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Hilary White
WASHINGTON, June 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Democrats in the US House of Representatives lifted a prohibition yesterday on allowing government donations of abortifacient and other contraceptives to abortion-promoting foreign aid organizations.
President Bush has twice said he will veto any legislation that weakens protection for life in the Mexico City Policy. The policy dates to the Reagan administration and prohibits any funding for any purpose to abortion providers in developing countries.
The amendment passed by a vote of 223-201, with 207 Democrats and 16 Republicans voting to allow the contraceptive funding.
Rep. Nita Lowey, the New York Democrat who wrote the amendment said, "It would advance the Bush administration's stated goal ... to make abortion more rare and protect women and children." Lowey's language reflects a move by the US Democrats to soften their image and adopt less militant language in their continued support for abortion.
Lowey, the chairman of the House appropriations panel overseeing the foreign aid funding, is a long-time militant abortion and contraception promoter in the House, and a supporter of the international population control agency, the UNFPA. She was behind a 1998 measure that forced federal employee health-care plans to cover contraceptives.
Lowey's first draft of the legislation specified that it would guarantee funds to any group so long as the assistance included funding for contraceptives.
Pro-life representatives argued that the bill would free up more resources for the groups' abortion activities and undermine the Mexico policy. "The Mexico policy exists to draw a bright line between U.S. family planning policy and abortion," said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa. "However, it appears that there are some out there who wish to blur this line, (which) is what leads to coercive abortions and forced sterilizations."
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
U.S. House Backs President's Mexico City Policy
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/may/01051601.html
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.