With a few strokes of the presidential pen, Joe Biden forced all American taxpayers to become complicit in his ambition to lead the most pro-abortion administration in the history of the United States.
By his January 28th executive action, Biden removed the longstanding protections known as the Mexico City Policy that prohibited federal tax dollars from funding overseas abortions through groups that perform and promote such abortions. The Mexico City Policy has been implemented by every Republican president since Ronald Reagan, and was recently strengthened and expanded by Donald Trump. This initiative essentially shielded U.S. taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortions or pro-abortion lobbying overseas.
Maligned by pro-abortion progressives as the Global Gag Rule, these highly effective pro-life policies should be hailed for protecting both conscientious taxpayers and unborn babies. At the same time, other developing nations are protected from having liberal pro-abortion ideology thrust upon them.
The Mexico City Policy does not alter Roe v. Wade, or limit any American citizen’s so-called right to choose anything, anywhere, anytime. Rather, it advances the concept of choice truly understood; the Reagan-Trump regulations reserved to citizen taxpayers the right to choose for themselves whether to spend their hard-earned dollars on overseas abortions.
Naturally enough, when ordinary citizens are allowed this precious right, they overwhelmingly choose to put their earnings to better things than a practice Pope Francis grimly calls “hiring a hit man” to abort the unborn. This stubbornly American act of independence enraged pro-abortion forces both here and abroad. “How dare they,” sputtered the international elites.
“How dare those deplorable middle Americans think they have the right to determine whether to pay for abortions in far-off lands? Why that’s downright unAmer– … ooops! Well, downright un-globalist! Un-internationalist! Un-United Nationsist, just plain un-UNist!”
Of course, there’s nothing more purely American than permitting working families to spend their earnings how and where they wish. Yet rather than allow this choice to continue, President Biden, following the lead of his recent Democrat predecessors, immediately issued an executive order that nullified the Reagan-Trump Mexico City protections. Biden jumped “all-in” for using tax money to promote abortion overseas, whether through Planned Parenthood, the United Nations Population Fund, or other organizations of that ilk.
This immediately drew the ire of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. They were, perhaps, already irked by Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki’s cloaking the administration’s particularly un-Catholic scheme by citing Biden’s personal history as a “devout Catholic.”
“I will just take the opportunity to remind all of you that he is a devout Catholic,” Psaki said about Biden, “and somebody who attends church regularly. He started his day with attending his church this morning.”
Hasn’t this incessant “devout Catholic” to any question directed at Biden about abortion devolved into an embarrassing Pavlovian response? Why can’t his media apologists and political supporters come up with something more germane? How about: “He’s an ardent Planned Parenthoodist”? Or maybe, “He’s a devoted Emily’s Listist”?
Speaking on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Joseph Naumann and Bishop David Malloy wrote: “It is grievous that one of President Biden’s first official acts actively promotes the destruction of human lives in developing nations. This Executive Order is antithetical to reason, violates human dignity, and is incompatible with Catholic teaching.”
One supposes that the last phrase about being “incompatible with Catholic teaching” was the bishops’ response to the “devout Catholic” broken record. In the event Biden had not gotten the message, they added, “We and our brother bishops strongly oppose this action. We urge the President to use his office for good, prioritizing the most vulnerable, including unborn children.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops statement concluded with a final plea. “To serve our brothers and sisters with respect, it is imperative that care begin with ensuring that the unborn are free from violence, recognizing every person as a child of God. We hope the new administration will work with us to meet these significant needs.”
As for “the new administration,” one can always hope and pray. That’s a starting point for all devout Catholics.
Sadly, in the case of President Joe Biden, the words that best apply come not from Scripture but from the incomparable Samuel Johnson. The sagacious writer’s response to a far different query perfectly answers any question about the likeliness of Biden reversing his hard-line pro-abortion stance. “It is,” Dr. Johnson prophesied, “the triumph of hope over experience.”
Joseph Tortelli is a freelance writer. Read other columns by Mr. Tortelli here.
