The irony is of course that most of these family planning clinics never had aborition as a mainstay of their programs. What this bill does is simply allow the word to be mentioned and referals to be given.

The main thrust for family planning advocats is, was, and always will be the prevention of conception through condom use (cheap, easy, and prevent desease as well) and other contraceptive measures.

It's good that the have the full arsenal now, but it's not like this will have a effect on the number of abortions which occur, it will simply lower the number of deaths from unsafe abortions.

Truly a wise and practical policy for those who are concerned about women's health globally.

I love him more every day.

The civilized are back in power. Considering Planned Parenthood worldwide does more to prevent abortion than it performs abortion this is a good move.

However be aware we may have pro-choice leadership, but history shows that every time we get a pro-choice leadership activism and donation to pro-choice groups falls because supporters get a false sense of victory. The self righteous anti choice organizations are relentless, so keep up keep up your activism and donations to pro-choice organizations. The right always uses the time to raise push their 'anti' woman agenda forward with new lies to get donations.

At long last the subject of Family Planning is being dealt with by mature, intelligent adults and not zealots and the lunatic fringe.

Thank God for Obama!

I'd be more impressed if Obama cut off all international funding that did not have a direct relation to preventing military conflicts. Sorry, but our economy is in the worse shape it's been in 80 years, the banks are essentially teetering on complete collapse, and we are applauding restoring funding to enhance mexican "choice"....hooray !

although you wouldn't know it where I work, which is full of conservative women in a conservative state. But I'm happy!

As when we are all decrying torture of suspected terrorists, detainment without trial and the sad state of our economy, but luckily, we all have the ability to approve of sending funding overseas and ability to turn a blind eye to legal genocide.

Great, now we can be kinder to terrorists, and start killing more babies!

Great, now we can be kinder to terrorists, and start killing more babies!

-- hkenworthy

You're free to leave any time you like.

Just sayin'

Just remember all he has done so far, and all he likely will do in the days, weeks, years to come...

Remember all this greatness when in three years he makes some decision on tariffs or trade with Sweeden that you don't like. Let's no jump down his throat and tear him to shreds at the first minor thing he does that we disagree with.

I'm greatful to have a President who can walk and chew gum at the same time- or less metaphorically process many policy decisions and stances and in fact understand how they interact. I don't understand how this takes away from other issues of foreign or domestic policy or costs anything in money- no extra dollars are committed - it just means that money already commited to aid orgs won't restrict what services and information they can provide.

I suspect a lot of the negativity is just knee-jerk left-wing complaining. I just don't get why so many people can't be happy to have a president enact the agenda they elected him for or are so shocked and astounded he's actually doing it.

It is really rather strange around here lately.

Life begins at conception, right-to-lifers like to tell us, as if an embryo about 1/10 of an inch long at one month can live on its own. But doesn't the potential-for-life argument, their rationale against using left-behind embryos at fertilization clinics for research, mean that life actually begins at the origin of both the egg and sperm? Those after all are the ultimate in providing potential for life.

So (and you probably know where I'm going with this one) why not punish males who masturbate for committing murder? (Women get a pass, I guess, because menstruation isn't intentional. But spilling seed over a picture of Salma Hayek? Abolustely!) So what if it would mean executing 99.9 percent of the U.S. male population? This is a black-and-white issue, dammit!

But absolustely does put the accent on "lust" for Salma Hayek. (Am I sharing too much right now? ;-) )

As you were.

I don't think Obama's decision implies more funding for health groups abroad--in fact, for all I know, he will probably cut the total amount of money allotted for such projects. What his decision means is that organs that do provide information on abortion will not be excluded from applying for resources. How much money there will be for them to apply for -- that's a different matter. Obama may very well cut part of the budget for it. It's simply that more organisms (e.g. Planned Parenthood) will qualify for the money--which only means the competition will be fiercer.

The claim that lifting the gag rule will result in more abortions is NOT supported by the facts - when the gag rule was in force, abortions went up (as did the deaths of women from unsafe abortions) When Clinton rescinded it, abortions went down and went back up when Bush reinstated it. Talking about abortion DOES NOT cause more abortions! Lack of access to contraceptive services DOES cause more abortions. The concept is a simple one - contraception prevents abortion and anything that limits access to contraception actually causes more abortions to occur - particularly unsafe ones.

One other point: it is unbelievably hypocritical to say you promote democracy and then censor medical speech as a condition for funding. Bad example for the rest of the world!