Christian Leftist

Eight years and a day after Bush revived the law that prohibited the U.S. from giving governmental assistance to health clinics abroad that discuss abortion options or provide abortions abroad, President Obama overturned it with a stroke of the pen.

According to the L. A. Times:

President Reagan instituted the rule, also known as the “Mexico City policy,” in 1984, stating that the U.S. government would not contribute to groups that “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.”

The result, critics said, was that nongovernmental organizations working in the developing world could not refer women to safe abortion providers or even conduct family planning education campaigns that discussed the procedure.

This is one of the first acts of Obama’s presidency, and it signals to me and other progressives that he has not forgotten the most grievous of the past ills of the Bush Administration. Whether or not his White House will attempt to or even be able to dismantle all of the harm Bush has done remains to be seen. I would hope for an overal reversal, but I suspect that not allof the damage the neoconservatives have done in the name of so-called “patriotism” and “family values” will be as easy to erase from the legal system or our memories. Still, the future is looking better than it has for a long time now.

I think he will see us through this depression. I hope he will.

I could weep for joy. I have been waiting a third of my life for this day.