Protecting Women and Children

            President Donald Trump and Congress are actively working to decrease the number of babies that are aborted in the United States and elsewhere. One of their actions is to defund Planned Parenthood. This means that taxpayer dollars would no longer be used to abort babies within the boundaries of the United States.

            Another action taken by the Trump administration is to implement a new version of the Mexico City policy of President Ronald Reagan to stop U.S. dollars from supporting abortion in foreign nations. The Mexico City policy was designated as such because it was announced by President Reagan in 1984 in Mexico City. This policy was “designed to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money is not funneled to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning.”

            The support or non-support for the Mexico City policy depends on the party who occupies the White House. President Reagan instituted the policy, and Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush embraced it. They were all Republicans. Democrats Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama nullified it.

            Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) has been involved in the process for more than three decades. In July 1985 he “authored the first of several successful annual amendments … to preserve the Mexico City policy.” He says that the “old Mexico City policy only applied to family planning funds – over half a billion dollars.”          Smith continues his explanation.

The new policy establishes pro-child safeguards – benign, humane conditions – on about $8.8 billion in annual global health assistance funding appropriated to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of State and Defense.

This funding includes not only family planning, but other global health assistance such as maternal and child health, malaria, and HIV/AIDS.

Also of significance, the new pro-child, pro-woman safeguards do not reduce funding for global health assistance by so much as a dollar.

            President Trump’s policy – Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance – includes three abortion exceptions: rape, incest, and the life of the mother. According to Smith, there is also nothing in the policy that will prevent treating injuries or illnesses caused by any abortion. Smith explains the benefits of the new policy.

Prioritizing programs that ensure adequate nutrition and supplementation for moms and children during the all-important first 1,000 days of life – from conception to the second birthday – are among the most transformative, life-enhancing commitments that can be made.

Expanding these measures make women and children healthier, stronger, and more resilient to disease and disability while reducing death and injury.

No one is expendable or a throwaway. Every human life has infinite value. Birth is merely an event, not the beginning of the life of a child.

The new Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy is inclusive of all people, regardless of their age, race, sex, disability, or condition of dependency – especially the weakest and most vulnerable.

            President Trump’s emphasis on protecting children – born and unborn – and women is shown through the defunding of Planned Parenthood and implementation of the new Mexico City policy.