In a major blow to President George W. Bush's foreign aid policy, the US Senate voted to repeal his ban on assistance to international family planning groups that fight for the availability of abortion.

By a vote of 53-43, senators rejected a motion to kill an amendment by Democrat Barbara Boxer of California that strikes down the so-called Mexico City Policy, an anti-abortion measure reaffirmed by Bush on his second day in office.

The Boxer amendment, which has thus been allowed to stand, is attached to a 27-billion-dollar State Department foreign aid bill being debated by the chamber.

The Mexico City Policy, often referred to as "the global gag rule," bars the US government from providing assistance to organizations that advocate abortion as one of family planning tools and openly counsel women about abortion services.

"These organizations face two choices, they can either refuse US assistance or give up the right to speak freely," an elated Boxer said in a statement.

She said "the global gag rule" would be unconstitutional if it applied to family planning groups in the United States.

"How can we export a policy that denies free speech and still say we support democracy?" the lawmaker asked.

The Mexico City Policy has a tortuous history fraught with raw emotion and heated debate.

First announced by president Ronald Reagan at a 1984 UN conference on population held in the Mexican capital, it set strict guidelines for providing US financial support to foreign family planning agencies, limiting it only to those that do not promote abortion as a method of birth control.

Faced with an outcry around the world, president Bill Clinton rescinded Reagan's executive order in 1993 -- only to draw condemnation from religious and conservative groups.

Bush, eager to shore up his conservative political base, reinstated the funding ban on January 22, 2001, in a memorandum sent to the head of the US Agency for International Development.

"It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad," the president said in that document.

But even after the Senate vote, the tug-of-war over population control was expected to continue.

The bill is facing an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. And the White House Office of Management and Budget warned earlier Wednesday that the administration would "strongly oppose" any amendment that would allow the government to fund abortion advocacy.

"The president would veto the bill if it were presented to him with such a provision," the OMB said in a terse statement.

But women's and abortion rights group hailed the Senate move as a crucial victory for all those who support a woman's right to choose.

"The Bush administration's global gag rule has made family-planning services -- which reduce the need for abortion -- harder for the world's poorest women to access," said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Population Connection President Peter Kostmayer said he believed the White House policy also violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees free speech.

"Even if you are against abortion, the fact that we have been dictating reproductive health policies for women in developing countries, without regard to their laws or customs, should demonstrate just how wrong this policy was," he said.

The bill also has a provision restoring 50 million dollars in funding to the United Nations Population Fund over a two-year period, according to officials.

Copyright 2003 AFP

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