The Mexico City Policy was first instituted in 1984 by President Reagan. It is named for the location of the UN population conference at which it was announced. The policy has been rescinded by Democratic Presidents Clinton, Obama, and now Biden; it was reinstated by Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Trump during their presidential terms. Under the policy, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cannot distribute family planning funds to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that perform or promote abortions. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who has served as co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus for decades, was in office when the policy was first instituted. He told CNA that existing policy—the Helms Amendment—had prohibited direct funding of abortions abroad, but stronger pro-life funding protections were still required. “And the accounting trick that the pro-abortion groups were doing was that they would take the all of the U.S. funding and then tell us our money wasn’t being used to pay for abortion,” he said. “And then they would just fund abortions-on-demand, however many they wanted to do, and lobby for it.” The Mexico City Policy, he said, “was all about saying if we care enough about the precious lives of unborn children who are going to be dismembered or chemically poisoned by an organization,” then “we’re not going to let bookkeeping tricks and accounting methods prevent us from as much protection as we can possibly provide.”
