Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The Obama administration today reversed a Bush administration ban on sending taxpayer-funded birth control to a British-based abortion business. This is the second time President Barack Obama has given American aid to Marie Stopes International, which does abortions around the world.

In September 2003, President Bush took action to block sending taxpayer-funded contraceptive supplies to Marie Stopes (MSI) through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

MSI participated in a joint venture with other organizations to provide medical care to AIDS victims in Africa and Asia.

The Bush administration said the United States shouldn’t have a relationship with MSI because it supports the China population control program that only allows couples to have one child.

Chinese authorities have failed to clean out the Augean stables of their own policy, which has seen local officials rely on campaigns of forced abortions, involuntary sterilizations and other human rights abuses to enforce the one-child rule.

MSI has a role as implementing partner to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in China.

Under Obama’s direction, USAID reversed the policy, which abortion advocates claimed prevented women from getting contraception and exposed them to unsafe abortions and death.

Jodi Jacobson, writing for the pro-abortion blog RH Reality Check, lamented statistics claiming "the deaths each year of more than half a million women – or 1,500 per day – from pregnancy-related causes."

Jacobson doesn’t note that the deaths could be prevented from providing third world countries with the kind of quality health care that drives down maternal mortality in other first-world nations, including those that ban abortions.

Instead, she bashes the Bush administration for crippling the efforts of the MSI abortion business.

Jacobson also fails to note that the Bush administration offered to continue funding the program through the other groups, but they chose to remain loyal to Marie Stopes and refused the money.

According to figures from the United Nations Populations Division, nations with laws legalizing abortion have not seen a corresponding drop in the rate of maternal deaths.

The "World Mortality Report: 2005" shows Russia, where abortion has long been considered a form of birth control, has a maternal mortality rate of 67 deaths for every 100,000 births.

The rate is 17 deaths for every 100,000 births in the United States, which also has very permissive abortion laws.

On the other hand, pro-life Ireland and Poland have lower rates. Ireland has the lowest maternal mortality rate with just 5 deaths for every 100,000 births. Poland’s is also lower with 13 deaths for every 100,000 births.

More recently, in February, the Human Rights Council (which backs abortion) noted the strides made in the area of maternal health in Malaysia. This is significant in view of Malaysia’s comparatively strict abortion policies. 

Highlighted at the Human Rights Council meeting was the World Development Report 2006, published by the World Bank, which indicated that, by making midwives widely available in rural areas, Malaysia dramatically reduced maternal mortality rates.

This is the second time Obama has come to the aid of MSI and its pro-abortion agenda.

Planned Parenthood and Marie Stops International both profited from Obama overturning the Mexico City Policy.

After Obama’s decision, MSI talked about how it will use the American money in nations around the world.

"MSI, which operates nearly 600 reproductive health clinics and hundreds more outreach teams across 43 countries," the group said. "Having refused to sign the Mexico City Policy on principle, MSI was denied funding."

MSI indicated it was forced to shut down abortion centers in some of the poorest areas of Ethiopia and Kenya because it refused to commit to only providing non-abortion services to the people there.

Although some abortion advocates have tried to cast the Mexico City Policy as one that has nothing to do with abortion, MSI admits that it prevents funding of groups that lobby countries to reverse their pro-life laws.