President Bush Slashes Family Planning Funds, Pro-Abortion Groups Mad

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Bush's latest budget he's submitted to Congress slashes federal funding for family planning -- promoting contraception in other nations. The decision has abortion advocates hopping mad. On his first day as president in 2001, Bush signed an executive order prohibiting taxpayer funds from being used to pay for or promote abortions in other nations. He later expanded what is known as the Mexico City Policy to cover all State Department funding. During that time, President Bush froze the level of family planning funding at $425 million annually -- the amount funded in the last year of the Clinton administration. That was done as federal funding of most other budget areas increased. But with Bush's new budget, which contains cuts in programs because of funding needs for combating terrorism and hurricane relief, family planning funds have been slashed 18 percent to $357 million.