    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [January 22, 1993]
    [Pages 10-11]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Memorandum on the Mexico City Policy
    January 22, 1993

    Memorandum for the Acting Administrator of the Agency for International
    Development

    Subject: AID Family Planning Grants/Mexico City Policy

        The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibits nongovernmental
    organizations (``NGO's'') that receive Federal funds from using those
    funds ``to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family
    planning, or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.''
    (22 U.S.C. 2151b(f)(1)). The August 1984 announcement by President
    Reagan of what has become know as the ``Mexico City Policy'' directed
    the Agency for International Development (``AID'') to expand this
    limitation and withhold AID funds from NGO's that engage in a wide range
    of activities, including providing advice, counseling, or information
    regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make
    abortion available. These conditions have been imposed even where an NGO
    uses non-AID funds for abortion-related activities.
        These excessively broad anti-abortion conditions are unwarranted. I
    am informed that the conditions are not mandated by the Foreign
    Assistance Act or any other law. Moreover, they have undermined efforts
    to promote safe and efficacious family planning programs in foreign

    [[Page 11]]

    nations. Accordingly, I hereby direct that AID remove the conditions not
    explicitly mandated by the Foreign Assistance Act or any other law from
    all current AID grants to NGO's and exclude them from future grants.

                                                          William J. Clinton