Funding organizations which provide or promote abortion overseas

David Freddoso has an article on Senator Bob Casey's vote to fund groups which promote and provide abortion overseas. It seems odd to me that Casey would vote with prolifers on the funding of embryonic stem cell research but against prolifers on providing funding to abortion promoting organizations overseas.

I read some of the debate over these amendments. It was Barbara Boxer at her best. Here's a sample. She was continually referring to an 11-year-old victim of rape and how these organization can't "help" her if they want to keep getting funding. "Help" being either giving her an abortion or referring her to an abortion provider. There was also talk about how not providing funding to groups providing or promoting abortion was a free speech issue. I guess the U.S. government is violating my right to free speech by not paying me for writing on this blog. There was also mention of a girl from Nepal named Min Min Lama who was arrested and imprisoned after a relative secretly gave her (without Min Min's knowledge according to the BBC story above) a drug to cause an abortion. It was asserted that a Nepalese family planning organization couldn't work to have the girl released until they decided to discontinue getting U.S. funds. This, of course, makes no sense since trying to get a teenage girl who was forcibly aborted released from prison isn't providing or promoting abortion. The family planning agency (which was associated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation) was actually interested in lobbying the government to get rid of Nepal's law against abortion.

Boxer has used these same poor arguments before. I guess a lot of senators just recycle the exact same arguments they make every year the issue gets debated.