The House Foreign Affairs Committee held hearings yesterday on the Mexico City Policy which prohibits taxpayer dollars from going to international organizations that either provide or support abortions. It appears likely that these hearings were called as an excuse to challenge the Mexico City Policy and provide justification for overturning it in stalled appropriations bills. The policy is THE pro-life battle of this session of Congress!
To see a video of yesterday’s hearings CLICK HERE or visit the Committee’s website, go to the “testimony & transcripts” section, and click on the video link for the hearings on October 31.
AdvanceUSA monitored much of yesterday’s hearings. Continue reading for some notes:
Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA) proclaimed “women around the world are fighting for reproductive rights” and labeled the Mexico City Policy a “gag rule” because it prohibits taxpayer funds from supporting organizations that even mention abortion as a family planning option (except in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother). The pro-choice members and witnesses repeated the terms “reproductive choice” and “gag rule” repeatedly throughout the hearings.
Ranking member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), strongly pro-life by self-admission, warned Congress to be careful when considering changing such an important statute. She pointed out that no members of the administration responsible for implementing foreign family planning aid (USAID) were asked to testify about the effects of the policy and said the hearings were thus critically flawed in their scope. She debunked some of the common myths associated with this policy by noting that family planning funding has not been cut but has actually increased and that abortion rates decreased soon after the reimplementation of the Mexico City Policy.
Pro-life champion Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said the future generations would look back on these hearings and wonder why such an important provision was considered controversial and wonder how an enlightened civilization could promote death. In his opening statements Smith showed ultrasound footage to illustrate the humanity of unborn children (to see these images open this video file and jump ahead to 17 minutes, 10 seconds).
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) gave testimony for the pro-life perspective calling the Mexico City Policy an important pro-family provision that protects women and children.
The only other pro-life witness to testify before the hearings was a Kenyan health official Dr. Jean Kagia, an OBGYN. She belied the oft-repeated notion that the Mexico City Policy has hurt family planning efforts noting that this has not been the case in Kenya. She declared that preventative measures that respect the rights of the unborn child were quite preferable to abortion and wondered why Western nations wanted to force their radical pro-abortion views on Africa calling such attempts “a new form of colonialism.” She also noted that other organizations continue to offer abortion in Kenya without U.S. tax dollars. She forcefully reminded the committee that “unplanned pregnancy is not a medical problem but a social problem” and that treating pregnancy as a medical “problem” often leads to actual medical complications.
Later in the hearings Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) affirmed that he would love to see something similar to the Mexico City Policy instituted within the U.S. (currently under the Hyde Amendment funds cannot support actual abortions but can go to organizations that promote it) in response to allegations that it made no sense to give money to Planned Parenthood in the U.S. whiled denying funds to Planned Parenthood International.
Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) asked one pro-abortion witness point-blank if he believed the fetus is a human life and the witness refused to answer.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) concluded by noting that statistics from the Guttmacher Institute and other pro-abortion organizations (which were often cited during the hearings) are notoriously inaccurate and often out-right deceptive.