New US House Bill Would Overturn Last Meaningful Restrictions on International Abortion Funding

April 29, 2010
By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) Last Friday, a Congresswoman from Brooklyn, New York introduced a bill in the United States (US) House of Representatives that would greatly expand international funding for abortion, contraception, and sex education, and would effectively eliminate the long-standing Helms Amendment prohibiting the use of US foreign assistance funds for abortion.

The Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act of 2010, sponsored by Representative Yvette Clarke and co-sponsored by at least 17 other House members, appears to be linked to the US statement at the recently concluded United Nations (UN) Commission on Population and Development (CPD). That statement touted that “President Obama has requested $715.7 million for bilateral and multilateral reproductive health, including family planning, in 2011. If approved later this year by Congress, this amount will represent the single largest U.S. contribution in history for international reproductive health programs.”

The stated purpose of the bill is the “advancement of sexual and reproductive health is necessary to meeting most of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” with its findings based almost entirely on the controversial UN report entitled “Adding It Up." That report was authored and sponsored by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and was also cited prominently in the US statement to the CPD. It advocated increased family planning and access to abortion as the primary means of reducing maternal mortality worldwide. the rest