By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush plans to sidestep congressional foes of his plan to freeze U.S. foreign aid for abortion-related activities, employing the policy as a special memorandum that his advisers say is not subject to review.
Bush had already tried to adopt the ban as a rule, a move which Democrats - and a few Republicans - had hoped to defeat with a vote.
Now, it appears they might not get the chance to sink the policy.
"The president has determined the most effective way to have his Mexico City policy carried out is through the issuance of a presidential memorandum, as opposed to rule-making at a government agency," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said in a telephone interview Friday. "It gets the same thing done. The substance is exactly the same."
The restrictions on foreign aid are referred to as the "Mexico City policy" because former President Reagan first announced his plans to implement the strategy at a 1984 population conference there.
The Clinton administration quickly reversed the ban on unrestricted family-planning aid overseas and, on Jan. 22, Bush put forth rules to re-establish it. The planned memorandum will take the place of those rules, said an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Democrats were irate over Bush's latest move.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who led the effort to overturn Bush's first policy, said she still hopes to find a loophole that will allow a challenge to the memorandum.
"No matter how he executes his policy, it doesn't change the fact that the denying of family-planning assistance will lead to an increase in the number of deaths due to unsafe abortions," Boxer said Friday night. "I will continue to do whatever I can to bring this before Congress and reverse it."
Jim Farrell, a spokesman for Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., questioned the timing of the administration's comment.
"He (Bush) doesn't want to announce these things in the light of day, during the middle of the week," Farrell said. "This administration likes to do its business on Friday and Saturday afternoon, when fewer people are watching."
The ban will stretch to international groups that use their own money to support abortion, either through performing surgery, counseling on abortion as a family-planning option or lobbying foreign governments on abortion policy.
Five Senate Republicans and two Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday to overturn Bush's original action, using a 1996 law that permits the House and Senate to pass legislation rejecting regulations. Republicans this month used the same law to overturn Clinton administration rules aimed at protecting workers against on-the-job injuries.
But a presidential memorandum does not appear to be open to a vote.
The White House released a letter from the U.S. Agency for International Development's procurement director to the agency's acting general counsel, spelling out Bush's plans to issue a memorandum and his decision to cancel the initial order.
When Bush issued his initial order, he told USAID, "It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion either here or abroad." It was his first full work day in the White House and the 28th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.
Abortion-rights supporters condemned Bush's action in January, calling it an act of war on women's reproductive rights. Bush said during the presidential campaign that he opposed abortion.
Current law bans the use of U.S. funds for any abortions in foreign countries. Former Presidents Reagan and Bush extended the ban to groups that use their own money to support abortion abroad.
President Clinton repealed the policy, which abortion-rights advocates call "the global gag rule," two days after he entered office in 1993. It went through several subsequent changes as the Democratic president reached different compromises with congressional Republicans.
