U.S. does have anti-abortion policy

Re: “New federal rules unfair,” Other Views, Jan. 21.

One would think that in this day and age, the Winnipeg Free Press editorial writer would know better than to misrepresent information and state inaccuracies as factual information when they write: “Imagine … the Liberal government reaction if our neighbours to the south … imposed a restriction on funding for youth jobs that required eligible employers to declare that they are anti-abortion.”

Although not youth-jobs specific, allow me to direct the editor’s attention to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “global gag rule,” otherwise known as the Mexico City Policy, which requires non-governmental organizations to certify that they will not perform or promote abortions anywhere in the world as a condition for receiving U.S. family-planning funds. This executive order, signed by Trump on Jan. 23, 2017, directs that NGOs that refuse to sign will be refused all health assistance, including for HIV, primary care, nutrition, tuberculosis and malaria programs.

This affects as much as $8 billion US in funding — money that developing world health budgets can ill afford to do without.

The editorial writer has every right to approve or disapprove of the Liberal government’s policy; that is not the salient argument. However, misrepresenting the true state of affairs, feigning indignation and outrage at one policy while deliberately ignoring and remaining silent about a near-identical policy in their rebuttal of that policy, is hypocritical. John Gannon Victoria