In a new letter to House lawmakers, the nation’s Catholic bishops and a Catholic group that helps the poor urge them to keep in mind pro-life policies when putting together legislation funding various federal government departments.
The letter from Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on International Justice and Peace, and Ken Hackett, president of Catholic Relief Services, went to the top Republican and leading Democrat on the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs. The letter concerns the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that the subcommittee is considering for funding 2012.
In the letter USCCB and CRS affirm strong support for restoring the Mexico City Policy against funding groups that perform or promote abortion. They also support denying funding to the U.N. Population Fund which supports a program of coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China.
“The USCCB, CRS, and many others in the faith community … stand ready to work with leaders of both parties for a budget that … promotes human life and dignity,” Bishop Hubbard and Hackett say in the letter.
“As you consider appropriations language, we strongly support restoring the Mexico City Policy against funding groups that perform or promote abortion, and denying funding to the U.N. Population Fund which supports a program of coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China,” they add. “It is also important to preserve the Helms Amendment, prohibiting U.S. funding for abortion, and the Kemp-Kasten provision, prohibiting support of organizations involved in programs of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
During his first week in office, pro-abortion President Barack Obama scrapped the Mexico City Policy that pro-life President George W. Bush put in place that stops funding groups that promote or perform abortions overseas.
During the Bush administration, such groups were prevented from receiving the family planning money or any aid through the State Department, if they would not back down from their pro-abortion agenda. The two biggest abortion businesses in the world, the U.S.-based Planned Parenthood and the British-based Marie Stopes International, refused to stop doing abortions or trying to get nations to abandon their pro-life culture and heritage and refused to follow the pro-life rules and accept the funds.
In April, pro-life Speaker John Boehner secured an budget agreement that, in part, cuts funding to the pro-abortion UNFPA (United Nations Family Planning Agency) that has worked hand-in-hand with Chinese population control officials who have enforced the one-child rule with forced abortions and other human rights abuses. Republicans trimmed funding for the agency from the $55 million President Barack Obama put in place to $40 million.
The bill also cuts international population control and family planning funding to $575 million from the $648 million Congress authorized in 2010. That’s less money for the pro-abortion groups without the Mexico City Policy.
