"Under President Obama abortion has been a high priority item"

Transcrição integral, no inglês original, de entrevista a Joseph Meaney, coordenador internacional da Human Life International. Ver reportagem aqui.

Full transcript of interview with Joseph Meaney, International Coordinator for Human Life International. See here for news story (in Portuguese)

What was the impact of Roe v. Wade at an international level?

The cumulative effect of abortion over the past 40 years is almost 2 billion abortions worldwide; the fact that it has been legalized in most of the industrialized world, and large parts of the developing world as well is kind of a snowball effect.

Abortion is promoted actively by many groups including the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and it has moved through all the key countries around the world. The USA legalized abortion in 1973 and was one of the first countries to do so after the communist block and the UK, in 1967.

It was a domino effect, all of Western Europe, in the 70s and 80s legalized abortion, there are a few countries holding out, like Ireland and Malta, and Poland reversed its abortion legalization, but still there has been a tide of more and more countries legalizing abortion, and that has been pushed with the ideology of Roe v. Wade, the ideology that abortion is a right, that women have a right to choose an abortion and that the right to life of the child does not enter into the equation.

This has been a strong feminist mantra and the strongest push for abortion has come from radical feminists around the world and a lot of the argumentation goes to Roe V. Wade and the right to privacy and the right to choose, which was enshrined in that decision in 1973

What role does the USA currently play in the international abortion debate?

It has been very clear that under President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that abortion rights, and pushing the legalization of abortion around the world has been a high priority item. The new constitution of Kenya comes immediately to mind, which weakened their pro-life laws significantly and which was lobbied for by the USA and by VP Biden who made a special trip to Kenya to urge voting for the new constitution and saying the US would donate money if it passed.

So these different incidences around the world where abortion has been legalized or there have been moves in that direction, have been strongly supported by the current administration. What we see in American politics in general is a polarisation. The Democratic administrations, since the 70’s have been very much for abortion and the republican administrations, since Reagan, have been against, and the foreign policy of the USA has followed in that vein.

There is something called the Mexico City policy which Reagan instituted in the 1980’s, which says that organizations that promote or perform abortion cannot receive funds from the US Government. That of course cut out Planned Parenthood and other organizations like that from receiving millions and millions of dollars. The very same Mexico City policy has been rescinded both by Clinton and Obama. There is also a question of money: pro-abortion groups get more money when there is a pro-abortion administration.