After 8 Years of Injustice, Int'l Family Planning is Restored
By Reverand Carlton W. Veazey
President and CEO of the Religious Coalition
After eight years of a policy that contributed to the suffering of women and children worldwide, President Obama has put the United States back on the path of charity, hope and compassion by overturning the Bush administration's global gag rule. Although some political conservatives publicly implored President Obama not to rescind the rule for fear it would rattle pro-lifers, President Obama has reaffirmed that the United States is a caring and humane world citizen and has removed injurious barriers to funding family planning services for some of the world's poorest women.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the national coalition of mainstream religious and religiously affiliated organizations with official pro-choice policies - praises President Obama's executive order repealing the global gag rule. Also known as the Mexico City policy, the rule prohibited American dollars from being granted to foreign family planning clinics unless they agreed not to use their own private, non-U.S. funds for abortion services or counseling. The rule also prohibited organizations from lobbying to reform harmful anti-abortion policies and laws.
President Obama also stated that he supports an American contribution to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and a prompt release of the funds following the enactment of 2009 omnibus appropriations bill.
Member groups of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice have a heritage of service to underserved and vulnerable communities and a commitment to the well being of families. Denominations including the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church and the Union for Reform Judaism, among others, have urged the U.S. to support family planning overseas, teaching that wealthier groups and nations have a special responsibility to help and care for persons in the poorer countries of the world, which includes support for the basic reproductive health services.
More than 500,000 women in developing countries die each year from pregnancy-related causes, and 8 million more suffer serious complications, often due to pregnancies that occur at a young age or are too closely spaced. Each year, approximately 10.8 million children under the age of five die, frequently from low birth-weight or other causes related to complications in pregnancy.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice hopes that these orders will be one of many steps the Obama Administration takes to address the reproductive health crisis facing women worldwide.
Family planning clinics provide critical health services to women and families, making it all the more important that they receive support and assistance. Many of these clinics have integrated HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, pre- and post-natal care, and other services into their family planning care.
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Imagine reading a headline that says After 8 years of Injustice, Slavery has been Restored" or After 12 years of Injustice, Hitler has Come Back Into Power". Insanem, wouldn't those two headlines be, well the same applies to the abortion issue. All three have the same thing in common, people thought the lives of the innoncent were not worth saving. Parents went around saying I would never own a slave, but they can own all they want, or I would never kill those people but they country can kill all they want. We just have to see how hard medical science is fighting to come up with birth control for men, the day after pill, and so many other birth control methods to realize that they know a fetus which means "Little One" is a baby. We also know that many, many people suffer after having an abortion, men and women.
What makes all the folks who look the other way any better than the folse who looked the other way with child abuse, be it a bishop, teacher, political party, family member or friend. Why can Planned Parenthood not report a rape, or when a fivteen year old teenager has had sex with a man over the age of twenty-one. Do all these people who support abortion really believe they are doing the right thing? Hasn't history proved that many of these people suffer the rest of their lives? Do any really believe that these people don't do drugs to forget, want to kill themselves.
Who will these people sue twenty years from now? Planned Parenthood, Political Parties, or will they want to go after the Church again and claim that we did not fight hard enough to prevent it? Anyone who is for abortion should look at the films of a baby being aborted, before saying they are for abortion. Anyone who has had an abortion should seek out help, there are many web sites who can help. www.priestsforlife.org , sistersforlife.com, www.touchedbyabortion.com
If after you have seen some of the films of the babies being aborted, or read some of the stories from those who have had abortions you still the same way, then at least you have researched both sides of the issue aand can make a informed judgment.
Why should they start a baby and then abort it for stem cell research when they are having better results with adult cell research from our own bodies.
Don't be like the slave sellers, slave owners or slave ship captains. Don't be like the people in Hitler's Germany who looked the other way because they did not have all the facts or went along with the crowd even thought they though it was wrong. Look at the video wherein a child is in the womb and his father leaves him and his mother give birth to him anyway even thought he will be in a poor family. If you watch the video you will be amazed to realize that President Obama is that fetus that could have been aborted.
When we grant American dollars to foreign family planning clinics that use “their private, non-US funds” for abortions, we still indirectly fund abortion . There is no way around this, as giving such an organization funds for any of their other services frees up their private, non-US funds for abortions that would otherwise be used on the other services. If we pay their electric bill, the money they budgeted for it can now be used for anything, including abortions.
To the millions of Americans who believe that life begins at conception this means we have funded killing the most defenseless members of our society . I doubt their blood will easily wash off our hands.