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Saturday Morning News

Bush Successfully Bans Funding to Groups Supporting Abortion

Aired March 24, 2001 - 8:06 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush has outmaneuvered Democratic efforts to scuttle his ban on using taxpayer money for international abortion counseling. We get more on this now from CNN's Kelly Wallace, who's at the White House this morning with the latest -- good morning, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Kyra.

This story a bit complicated, but it boils down to President Bush trying to use his executive powers to try to prevent law makers from blocking one of his actions through legislation.

You will recall that one of Mr. Bush's first acts as president was reinstating a policy which began under President Ronald Reagan and that banned federal funding of international family planning groups that use their own money to provide abortions or abortion counseling services overseas.

Well, earlier this week a bipartisan group of senators introduced a resolution trying to overturn Mr. Bush's actions using something called the Congressional Review Act. This is the same legislative vehicle that Republicans used just a few weeks ago to overturn Clinton administration workplace rules designed to prevent repetitive stress injuries.

Well, last night the White House announced that Mr. Bush would be issuing an executive memorandum this week as opposed to try and reinstituting the ban via rule making processes, and the White House believes issuing an executive memorandum would not be able to be overturned by Congressional action.

Well, Democrats seem to disagree. They believe they can always go ahead and try and get a competing measure passed into law and Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California had some strong words to say last night. In a statement to CNN she said, "No matter how he executes this policy, denying family assistance will lead to an increase in the number of deaths due to unsafe abortions. I will continue to do whatever I can to bring this before Congress and reverse this intolerable action."

Incidentally, two of the Republican senators who are supporting this resolution to block Mr. Bush's actions include the two moderate Republican senators from Maine, Senator Olympia Snow and Senator Susan Collins, the two senators who traveled with Mr. Bush yesterday to Portland, Maine as he was trying to build up support for his tax cut proposal. So not clear if this move by the president will lead to any ramifications. Again, though, it shows how the president will have to have a delicate balancing act, trying to appeal to moderates while putting forth some policies that they definitely don't agree with -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: All right, Kelly Wallace live at the White House, thanks.

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