Mike Levin: “When I was Assistant Administrator of AID in the late 1970's, we faced this very issue of fungibility, so we set up…”

“When I was Assistant Administrator of AID in the late 1970's, we faced this very issue of fungibility, so we set up methods to make sure that American dollars were insulated from any expenditure for abortion-related activities. We faithfully carried out the Helms amendment. It mostly related to IPPF. It does not spend any substantial amount of its own funds, its central funds, on abortion-related activities. It has affiliates that spend its funds. These are essentially semiautonomous or autonomous affiliates who raise their moneys in countries where abortion is legal. The result of the Mexico City policy is, we could not give any funds to any organization that had any affiliate that spent the funds it raised for anything relating to abortion. That meant we would prevent an organization from being in family planning because, in a third degree, some affiliate spent some money it raised in its local country for something that was legal in this country. That is why this effort really strikes at family planning throughout the world, and why we should turn it down.”