Richard Land decried President Barack Obama’s executive order rescinding the Mexico City Policy Jan. 23.
Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the action reverses a policy, which is favored by pro-life Americans, that prevents taxpayer dollars from funding international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), unless the organizations agree to not perform or promote abortions.
Land said Obama’s decision, while not unexpected, was a tragic step backward in the struggle to safeguard the lives of the unborn.
“President Obama was the most radically pro-choice candidate of a major party in American history and pledged to Planned Parenthood that he would never back down on this issue,” said Land.
“Unfortunately, his executive order overturning the Mexico City Policy may just be the first step in his fulfillment of that campaign pledge to his radical pro-abortion supporters. With his action today, American taxpayers’ money once again will be used in part to fund abortions that end the lives of our fellow human beings in other countries.”
President Ronald Reagan first instituted the policy in 1984; it remained in effect during George H.W. Bush’s presidency. President Bill Clinton rescinded the policy upon taking office in 1993; George W. Bush, in one of his first official acts in office, reinstated the policy.
The Southern Baptist Convention remains committed to an agenda that builds a culture of life and protects every life from “conception to natural death,” according to the Baptist Faith & Message. The ERLC will continue to urge both Congress and the administration to support policies that protect the unborn.
_The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 16.2 million members in over 44,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C._
