President Obama's executive order regarding abortions

Mary Kochan writes a thought provoking and powerful article at Catholic Exchange:

"As everyone who is paying any attention to such issues knows by now, on Friday, January 24th, President Obama signed an executive order reversing the ban that prohibited funding to international family planning groups that provide abortions. The ban got its name when it was introduced by the administration of Ronald Reagan in 1984 in Mexico City. It had been overturned by President Clinton in 1993 and restored by President Bush at the beginning of his administration in 2001.

Abortion proponents had been looking forward to this for a long time. They call the Mexico City Policy the “Global Gag Rule” since it prevents them from offering women the alternative of abortion as a “family planning” option and it keeps organizations that receive federal funding from attempting to influence the laws and policies of foreign governments to allow greater access to abortion.

Pro-lifers saw the policy as preventing the unwarranted intrusion of American abortion proponents in other countries, often in a manner that disrespects their cultures’ attitudes toward life, family matters, and childbirth. Since pro-lifers were marching in Washington on Thursday, January 23th, President Obama waited until Friday to sign the order. Ostensibly this was to show that he did not want to be “confrontational” with pro-lifers who were somehow supposed to be mollified over their tax dollars being spent to fund the international baby-killing cartel due to the respect and consideration shown to them by not signing the order on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This is to be expected. Symbolic “non-confrontation” with pro-lifers is now married to substantive, aggressive, pro-abortion actions. If this plays fast and loose with any real conception of what “non-confrontational” actually means, that is to be expected also, because distorting the clear meaning of words has been part and parcel of the culture of death since, well… since the Garden of Eden..." (Continued here at Catholic Exchange)