Do you know that for (at least) the past eight years, the United States has been contributing hundreds of millions of dollars every year to promote abortion in other nations? It’s true. At least it was true, until a couple weeks ago.
The “Mexico City Policy,” named for the city where it was first enacted, blocks U.S. federal funding for international NGOs that promote abortion, provide abortion referrals, or legislate for abortion legalization. President Obama had rescinded the policy during his eight years of leadership and President Trump recently reinstated it, on January 23, 2017. NGOs that engage in these activities can no longer receive U.S. aid.
The policy has undergone some historic flip-flopping:
1984: Enacted by President Ronald Reagan
1993: Rescinded by President Bill Clinton
2001: Reinstated by President George W. Bush
2009: Rescinded by President Barack Obama
2017: Reinstated by President Donald Trump
Many nations have felt the pressure of world health organizations, with the firm backing of the United States, to reduce their populations through abortion, so this action is an answer to prayer for many around the world. The international abortion industry has been a well-funded juggernaut, but now its funding has been diminished by an estimated $600,000,000 every year.
Abortion is often promoted internationally as just one option in a catalog of “reproductive rights,” without acknowledgment of its devastating effects: on the preborn child first, but also on families, communities, economies, and entire nations. Scores of nations have below-replacement birth rates—meaning that they are collectively dying—thanks, at least in part, to abortion.
The felt need and the desire for abortion will not abate due to lack of funding. In fact, efforts are now underway to replace the revoked funding from new sources. The Church of Jesus Christ, however, has been granted a slight reprieve, an opportunity to sow life into the nations through the promotion of Jesus’ Gospel of abundant life!
Our hope rests in one person, and it’s not the one in the United States White House. Our hope rests in Jesus Christ and in His fierce protection of children (remember His “millstone” comments?) and his John 3:16 love for all of humanity.
Every dollar and peso and franc and rupee in the world combined cannot fund an opposition sufficient to overtake the power of the Gospel, but we can thank the Lord for a not insignificant impediment to the seemingly inexorable progress of the abortion industry. Preborn lives will be saved as a result of the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, and for that I am thankful.
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