That’s my logic as well.
Thanks for raising the issue fairly and responsibly in both matters of faith and accurate history/policy. This doesn’t always happen among evangelicals, sadly.

Unfortunately, he’s shown little interest in a third way on this or any other issue.

I suspect on this and quite a number of issues, Christians who voted for Obama will be feeling a considerable bit of buyer’s remorse.

I agree. It is an either/or consideration. It is not adding monies, it is taking from one to give to another.
I also think the way you have framed the issue is important – unwanted infant not just unwanted pregnancies.

In the book Freakonomics, authors Levitt and Dubner note that a burgeoning youth-crime rate in the U.S. suddenly dropped at a time when it might have finally gone out of control. The drop can be correlated, they say, against the time when many unwanted children would have reached the age of criminal activity had Roe v. Wade not gone into effect and prevented their birth.
Perhaps Obama is using abortion as a preemptive attack on illegal immigration and terrorism? Why bomb them later when you can abort them now? I’m not saying I approve. I’m just saying that I agree it’s not just about unwanted pregnancies; it appears to be directed at unwanted people and people groups.

Scot -
I think the opinion is a bit pre-mature and lacking in needed statistical data. Your opinion seems to assume that in any given community there are two family planning organizations – one that provides contraception and pre-natal care, and another that provides only abortions with no contraception and no pre-natal care. And that the Republican policy funds the first, while the Democratic policy takes money away from the first and funnels it toward the other organization which only provides abortions.
I simply don’t think that’s true. I expect in communities where there was only one family planning NGO, which provided a full range of services (birth control, pre-natal care AND abortion), the Republican policy cut them off from funding entirely. That community would not get any funding for the purposes of which you approve.
Here are a couple of examples pulled off of another beliefnet site. (I’m assuming the accuracy, which would merit verification)
http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2009/01/is-repealing-the-anti-abortion.html
“The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana provided family planning services to as many as 697,000 individuals. Their loss of funding as a result of the Mexico City policy affected the ability of 1,327 communities in Ghana to prevent unintended pregnancies and abortion. Repealing the Mexico City policy would reduce the number of abortions worldwide by restoring desperately needed family planning services to some of the poorest countries in the world.”
“The Mexico City policy has lead to the loss of USAID-supplied contraceptives in 16 developing countries throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Repealing the Mexico City policy would help save the lives of women worldwide by restoring needed family planning services.”
Again, assuming the truth of the above claims, Obama’s policy does have something life affirming to be said for it, although it certainly isn’t a “third way”.

Wanted to add another questioning voice to Patrick’s.
I’ve spent the last fifteen years in ‘evangelical transformation and development’ work in the third world and I don’t know a lot of people on the ground who agree that the ‘Mexico City’ perspective has reduced abortions. Most think it has increased them because the favored clinics tend to encourage religion based abstinence policies to people in crisis who in general have little interest in religious ideology. The idea that many of these Reagan/Bush sponsored health clinics strongly encouraged contraception is simply not true.
The abortion issue in the third world has a number of facets.
Women have virtually no control of their own lives or futures in much of the third world and unwanted pregnancies doom many of them to a future of the worst kinds of poverty. Which means–in most cases–their children are doomed to those futures of extreme poverty. Maybe you haven’t lived in extreme poverty or seen it up close for many years. It’s not abstract. :^)
Many families in extreme poverty can’t afford to feed another mouth since they can’t feed themselves. Some of them consider abortion to be a merciful if heartrending choice.
When I speak of people in extreme poverty, I refer to well over a billion people.
Even the best ‘third way’ American evangelicals do moral cost benefit evaluations. I would guess that’s why so many of them support–at times if very reluctantly–the inevitable killing of often innocent people in what they consider to be necessary wars.
Poor people do the same kinds of practical moral cost benefit calculations.
Is it possible that at least part of the very intense response that many conservative evangelicals have to abortion springs from a reaction to one unfortunate aspect of the rise of American feminism? Many conservatives reacted very strongly to a seemingly casual attitude toward abortion among well off and educated women here in the states.
I’m just not sure that applying that template to the third world makes much sense.
Is it possible that the Obama folks–along with the vast majority of actual development field workers in the developing world–understand the moral complexities along with the practical complexities that Patrick alludes to and are doing their own practical moral cost benefit calculations?

Interestingly, I had considered mentioning this in my original comment. While it is certainly true that we can never have a discussion which fully accounts for all of the issues, nuances and perspectives which may or may not be a contributing factor, the notion of responsible thought and dialogue is taking into account a reasonable representation of the situation. This, I believe, has been accomplished by Scot’s discussion here, not because I agree with his logic but because it is reasoning through in a way which is responsible to the events of political history.
Dave – I think I understand what you’re saying, but would be quite surprised if that were anywhere near the President’s line of thought. At this point he is showing that he is more concerned with political expediency and party-line pet projects than tackling any major issue. I say this not as an outspoken criticism but a recognition of what he has chosen to make of his first days in office. So far he is falling right in step with the Democrat view of abortion.

Thanks for these two posts Scot. It has provided a lot of information about which I was previously ignorant.
I’m not smart enough to weigh in on the topic at hand, but I have to agree with Dan #3. There was a lot of love for Obama – even on Jesus Creed – and now many (not all) are surprised that he isn’t representing a third way. I still pray for Obama and wish him to succeed, but these policies are no surprise.

Here is one quotation supporting Patrick’s comment. The Mexico City Policy net effect WAS in lowering family planning funds to many regions, and pushed funds to less effective NGO’s in other cases.
I’ve been looking a bit online and will post a few other examples as well:
“Susan A. Cohen, director of government affairs of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a research organization the promotes family planning and population control, said that while the Mexico City policy involved no reduction in total USAID funding for family planning, it did lead to “regions and localities where services (formerly available) were unavailable. For those women in those places, it was little consolation” that the aid went somewhere else.
She referenced to a 2006 article in the Guttmacher Policy Review, in which she reported that according to one study, “Sixteen developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East (which received aid under the Clinton administration) had lost their USAID supply of contraceptives as of 2002. … In each case the local International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliate was the only recipient of USAID contraceptives, but refused to accept the U.S. gag rule.”
http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/3171

Another example:
“In Kenya, the effects of the Global Gag Rule have been equally detrimental…. In addition to creating contraceptive shortfalls and closing reproductive health clinics, Ms. Owusu-Ansah reported that PPAG saw at 50% increase in the number of women who came to their clinics for post-abortion care. By denying access to reproductive health services and contraceptives, the number of unintended pregnancies grew, often leading to abortion.”
http://www.populationaction.org/Press_Room/Viewpoints_and_Statements/2007/10_15_GGRBriefing.shtml

Tom wrote:
“Even the best ‘third way’ American evangelicals do moral cost benefit evaluations. I would guess that’s why so many of them support–at times if very reluctantly–the inevitable killing of often innocent people in what they consider to be necessary wars.
Poor people do the same kinds of practical moral cost benefit calculations.”
No comparison here. The issue of civilian casualties in warfare is a matter of the value of one life against the value of one or more other lives. It is not a measure of economic or social costs. War, and capital punishment differ from abortion.
In the case of capital punishment, we are dealing with one who has been found guilty of taking innocent life, not dealing with someone who is innocent.
In a just war, we are dealing with a moral dilemma in which taking up arms will cost lives, but not taking up arms will sacrifice more lives. Civilian casualties should be avoided wherever possible, but the measure is still how we can save the greater number of lives.
We can debate which wars were just and which were not, but it is a far different thing from saying that an innocent child in the womb should be killed because the child and/or the mother will struggle economically. The answer to poverty is charity, not abortion.

And one last example of evidence that suggests that even if funding remained the same in total, the impact of the Mexico City Policy still was to dramatically weaken family planning efforts that themselves would reduce abortions.
From 2001 Senate testimony from the President of a major family planning group Pathfinder:
“We have provided the seed money that launched the very first family planning work ever undertaken in 30 different countries. In all these years, first with private funds, and, since the late 1960?s, with public funds as well, we have taken pride in our work, work that depends centrally on with whom we partner in a developing country.
Our criteria for selecting partners reads like a good management diary. These are some of the questions:
What is the most cost effect organization?
Which organization is managed well?
Which organization provides the highest quality of care?
Which organization has the best capacity to expand in order to reach the poorest of the
poor?
Which organization is the most sincerely committed to improve the conditions of its people?
With the gag rule in place, the over-riding question for how we spend U.S. government funds must be first and foremost: Is the organization anti-abortion enough?
This is the question in spite of the fact that the money we are discussing could never be used for
abortion in the first place….
Between now and October 1, Pathfinder will scramble to find some other way to get family planning assistance to three million mothers in Bangladesh. We will attempt to patch together other providers, calling upon them to consider whether they are willing to accept the American Government’s gag rule. We will attempt to do this as best we can in other countries, as well. But there will be added costs, reduced efficiencies, and diminished respect for American foreign
assistance.”
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pathfind.org%2Fsite%2FDocServer%2F7-28-03_Resource_2001_Senate_Testimony2.pdf%3FdocID%3D661&ei=HiR_Sc2wNY_ftgf8x6yfBQ&usg=AFQjCNG0moTe9vWVmQ1YBuLwaxHoDdfJ_w&sig2=3QigxYqp-AMPQxa77kkaOg

If Obama voters (myself included) are experiencing buyers remorse after the rescinding of the global gag rule, then they didn’t do their research before voting. Obama told us he would do this, we knew ahead of time.
I voted for him anyways because of the many other issues that I support him on. I still cringed when it went through, as it is this issue that I most disagree with Obama on. However, I didn’t expect for him to a be a perfect President that always put through policies that I agree with. It is now my responsibility to do what I can have our pro-life voice heard on this issue.
Scot, I agree with you that this is not a third way. I wish Obama had been more creative and tried to find a path between the two extremes.
This article popped up in the news this morning – one reporter’s experience with the gag rule in Africa: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/26/the_end_of_global_gag
Kacie

following is a note i just received from my friend in DC who works with this issue extensively.
“Interesting. here is information from a floor debate on the Mexico City Policy in which the Ghana myth came up. Planned Parenthood of Ghana is one of the most actively pro-abortion IPPF affiliates, but even under MCP money went to other source. The IPPF in Ghana has a strategic goal to increase access to abortion. That is not the kind of organization that the U.S. should support.
The Mexico City Policy has reduced family planning in Ghana ?
Rep. Ryan inaccurately implied that USAID no longer provides family planning in Ghana when he said ?The oldest and the largest family planning organization in Ghana previously provided a third of the contraceptives in the nation with no abortion services.?
Rep. Smith quickly responded by pointing out that ?just because Planned Parenthood of Ghana is so obsessed with abortion promotion that it won?t sign the policy, other NGOs and other providers have stepped into the breach to provide family planning?not abortions?to the people of Ghana .? Contraceptive shipments to Ghana have increased from an average of $1.5 million per year between 1998-2001 to $2.3 million per year on average under the Mexico City Policy between 2002-2007.”

Scott,
I thank you, as well, for initiating this conversation. The education it gives this stay-at-home mom is invaluable.

One question. When I read “monies that were designated for non-abortion access NGOs are now being shifted (because of President Obama’s rescinding of the Mexico City Policy) to abortion-access NGOs,” I’m thinking that the entire NGO is either getting money (or not) on the basis of whether or not abortions might be provided there, but assume that we’re talking about NGOs that provide other, non-abortion, services. Is this correct? If so, I’m not in favor of restricting funds that might be used for other, needed, health care, just because there’s a chance that it might be used for an abortion. We’d be causing as much death and suffering (among already-born) as we’d be hoping to save (among not-yet-born)….

Oh, I see that Patrick in #6 is addressing this very question. I should read before I post….

My opinion:
Forcing people to not talk about abortion does not help anyone. There will be just as many people who decide against abortion when they here the facts about it, then people who decide to do it. The overall amount of abortions will probably not change.
What will change is the intellegence about it. Maybe a mother will think twice about abortion when she hears that it could be very dagerous to her own health.
People have a right to know things. Stopping people for teaching others is never a good thing. All that does is create more uneducated people.