Chris Smith: “The problem here is that performance, the Helms amendment of 1973 said very simply, direct funding. What was found to be…”

“The problem here is that performance, the Helms amendment of 1973 said very simply, direct funding. What was found to be very infirm about that language, and that is why the Mexico City policy was constructed in the early 1980's under the Reagan administration, was that it was like Swiss cheese. It was not stopping the performance of abortions by the very people that we heavily subsidize in the developing world. They were the abortion mills. We were giving them $500,000 here, and then they would say, and it is not totally concluded that they did not do this, they would say, 'Oh, we're not going to use your money to kill the unborn babies, we'll use our own.' The problem with that is who we give to does matter. If they were absconding with funds and theft was the issue, this so-called lying of accounting would be meaningless. The issue comes down to whether or not we want to give to organizations that are promoting and doing abortions on demand, and that is the essence of our amendment and it is simplicity. Their amendment absolutely guts it.”