The underlying reason for why the Bush administration and other organizations support the Mexico City Policy is that they are strongly opposed to the concept of abortion. Because of religious beliefs or other ideologies, these groups condemn abortion as morally wrong. They therefore think that taxpayer's money should, under no circumstances, support the encouragement or practice of abortion in foreign countries. To back-up their decision to cut funds, supporters of the Bush administration claim that abortion is not a legitimate form of family planning; rather, they say there is a crucial distinction that needs to
be made between ethical family planning and abortion. According to this opinion, too many groups that provide reproductive education and medical assistance abroad use the term "family planning" as a cover-up for their involvement with abortion practices. U.S. representative, Christopher H. Smith said, "We should have no part in empowering the abortion
industry to succeed in its war on the unborn." A second argument to support the Policy branches out to say that the
U.S. should not fund abortions in other countries because it is a form of cultural imperialism. In other words, by making abortion available to women in other countries, the U.S. would be forcing a practice on women that might go against their cultural or religious beliefs. These and other arguments stand behind Bush's decision to enforce the Mexico City Policy.

Taxpayer's Money & American Aid for Overseas Family Planning
By cutting funds to American and foreign organizations that support abortion abroad, the U.S. is sending a firm message that there is a distinction between family planning and abortion. The Mexico City Policy only gives money to groups that pledge to provide only family planning (i.e.-- contraceptives, education on child-rearing etc.). While this might mean that some groups who are not willing to comply do not receive U.S. aid, it does not mean that U.S. aid allotted to family planning in foreign countries is at all reduced. Rather, this policy ensures that all of the money for family planning programs goes to "morally-sound" organizations. The current Bush administration points to the high percentage of aid that went directly to population control
during the Reagan and Bush terms. Under the Mexico City Policy, Bush and Reagan allotted forty percent of all the population control funds to family planning. Today $425 million has been appropriated for overseas family planning groups. The President believes that abortion will be ultimately prevented because these funds will go to providing quality voluntary family planning services. This money, he says, does not prevent organizations from treating injuries or illnesses caused by legal or illegal abortions. Aid is no longer being used to support abortion as a method of birth-control in foreign countries; rather, it is being used for legitimate forms of family planning and medical care.
image from http://www.rnclife.org/pledge/

Cultural Imperialism
Some supporters of the Mexico City policy feel that the U.S. had previously been imposing the practice of abortion on the rest of the world. For America to encourage women of other cultures and continents to abort unwanted children as a means of safe birth control, is to engage in an imperialistic war of ideologies where America is once again taking on the role of the moral police, some supporters of the Policy said. In a 1997 joint resolution, Congress stated: "The United States has no business paying for organizations to pressure countries to adopt pro-abortion laws in violation of the deeply held cultural and religious
beliefs of their citizenry." Representative Smith said: "We believe it [the Mexico City Policy] will protect some unborn children by prohibiting a particularly ugly form of cultural imperialism in which U.S. taxpayers support entities that are actively engaged in bullying smaller nations into rejecting the traditions and moral values of their people."1 Simply because the U.S. has the funds to support reproductive health in other countries, does not mean it should impose abortion on women and their communities.

Helping Women of the World & Developing Nations

Organizations that condemn the Mexico City Policy point to the damaging effects the Policy has on women's health, both physically and emotionally. Supporters of the Policy, however, counter-attack this accusation with the following pieces of evidence. First, the Policy does not restrict organizations from providing life-saving care after an abortion (legal or illegal) that has experienced complications. Second, statistics show that five years after the Policy was first implemented in 1984, there was no increase in illegal abortions or deaths resulting from those abortions. (T. Lewin, "Abortion-Aid Cutoff still Being Judged," New York Times, February 27, 1989, p. a 16). Supporters argue that the high rates of maternal deaths could be reduced if women had access to basic health care. Money should go to treating women who are pregnant; promoting abortion does not address their needs. Lastly, women in developing nations do not want to abort their children; what they want most is for their children to have food, medicine and shelter. They resent the US's advice that they should accept abortion as a primary method to solving their serious problems of development.