An executive order President Donald Trump signed Friday will overturn two Biden memorandums and reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which forbids using taxpayer dollars to fund nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.
The Mexico City Policy, initiated by the Reagan administration, has been rescinded by every Democratic president and reinstated by every Republican president since its creation.
During the Biden administration, the Pentagon paid for service members to travel over state lines for abortions, and Veterans Affairs medical centers were allowed to offer abortion counseling and abortion procedures for service members and their beneficiaries, Fox News Digital previously reported.
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The administration also provided abortion access to migrants detained at the border, offering transport of unaccompanied pregnant children to states without abortion restrictions.
The White House said that, for nearly five decades, Congress annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent federal funding of elective abortion, “reflecting a longstanding consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice.”
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“However, the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy by embedding forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions in a wide variety of Federal programs,” the White House wrote in a statement. “It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.”
Biden’s Presidential Memorandum, Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad, was signed Jan. 28, 2021, and alleged the policy’s restrictions negatively affected women’s reproductive health and undermined U.S. partnerships in global health efforts.
Trump’s order rescinds two Biden executive actions that promoted access to abortions and included abortion in the definition of “reproductive healthcare.”
The language in the new order clarified the memorandum is “not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) told Fox News Digital the policy “will decrease abortion access in countries around the world.”
“This far-reaching policy defunds health organizations in other countries that provide abortion services or information, even for victims of sexual assault,” CRR said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “Many of these critical organizations will likely shutter as a result or be forced to stop providing or even talking about abortion services.”
CRR representatives also referenced the administration’s Geneva Consensus Declaration Friday night, which is a joint initiative to “secure meaningful health and development gains for women; to protect life at all stages; to defend the family as the fundamental unit of society; and to work together across the UN system to realize these values,” according to a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The CRR called the declaration “an anti-reproductive rights and anti-LGBTQ political statement” that “intentionally misrepresents itself as an official international agreement, and attempts to undermine the broad legal basis for reproductive rights as human rights.”
“The reinstatement of President Trump’s Global Gag Rule (GGR) and rejoining of the Geneva Consensus are direct assaults on the health and human rights of millions of people around the world,” said Rachana Desai Martin, CRR chief government and external relations officer.
“We saw the devastating impact of the GGR during the last Trump administration when contraception and vital reproductive services were cut off,” Martin added. “There was a spike in pregnancy-related deaths, reproductive coercion and gender inequality worldwide. Many clinics and health programs shuttered, leaving vulnerable populations with nowhere to get birth control, pregnancy care and other vital health services.”
Live Action, a global human rights movement dedicated to ending abortion, posted on X after the order was signed.
“The Mexico City policy which ensures American tax dollars do not fund killing children internationally through abortion has been reinstated by President Trump!” the post said.
Fox News Digital requested comment from Planned Parenthood and Physicians for Reproductive Health but did not immediately receive a response.
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