Bush blocks international abortion funds
US president George W. Bush has decided to block US funds to international family-planning groups that offer abortion and counselling, according to the White House.
The action, which reverses a Clinton administration stance will be among the first policy moves of the new Republican Bush-Cheney administration and was leaked on the same day that abortion opponents staged their annual march on Washington.
US funds to international groups that support abortion have been blocked in the past by former president Reagan and President Bush’s father, in what became known as the Mexico City policy, because it was announced at a 1984 population conference there.
Former president Bill Clinton, an abortion-rights supporter, had restored the funding two days after entering the White House for the first time in 1993.
