[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

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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