Well, That Didn't Take Long

Checking the news at lunchtime today, I learned that President Obama would today lift the ban on giving federal funding to groups that promote abortion in other countries. Leaving aside the question of morality, there's another very big question American citizens should be asking themselves: What's in it for us?

Really. Why should we pay for them? Individual Americans can do whatever they like with their own money, but it seems to me that a country's government money should go toward projects that benefit the people of that country. How does it benefit the American guy/gal on the street to finance abortions in foreign nations? If individual women in other countries want abortions, why should the US government--which, let's not forget, takes its money from individual people's pocketbooks and paychecks--pay for them?

Sometimes it can be in our national interest to provide aid to other nations, of course, so it may be there is some benefit to you, me, and that guy ahead of us in line at the Quik-e-Mart that I'm just not seeing. Perhaps the idea is that if we help foreigners have abortions, there will be less of them, and that will be in our national interest? I guess that could be it, but I'm not convinced.

Would it be too much to ask that President Obama explain how it serves the United States' interests to pay for foreign abortions? And if he can't give a reason, to reinstate the ban until he can? Until then, Americans who worry about foreign people going un-aborted could start private charities to donate funds to pay for those abortions.