President Joe Biden has reversed a ban on federal funds going to international aid groups that perform or inform about abortions.
Biden told reporters during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office that the ending of the so-called Mexico City Policy reverses former President Donald Trump's "attack on women's health access".
The memo also orders a review of a Trump-era policy blocking funding for US clinics that offer abortion referrals as well.
Biden's move fulfilled one of the promises from his presidential campaign to rescind the Mexico City Policy, which banned US government funding for foreign non-profits that perform or promote abortions.
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The Trump administration reinstated the restriction in 2017 and then extended it to cover all applicable US global health funding.
Biden responded to criticism that he was governing by executive order, rather than congressional legislations. He said: "I'm not initiating any new law, any new aspect of the law.
"There is nothing new that we're doing here other than restoring the Affordable Care Act ... to the way it was before Trump became president," he added.
The Mexico City Policy was first enacted by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and has been repeatedly renewed by Republicans and cancelled by Democrats.President Biden has also instructed the US health department to immediately consider removing Trump-era restrictions to Title X, a domestic family planning programme for low-income Americans.
Trump's overhaul of the Title X programme saw tens of millions of dollars removed from any health centres that offered or referred patients for non-elective abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.
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On Thursday, the President also removed the US from a 2020 resolution known as the Geneva Consensus, a non-binding charter of more than 30 countries that oppose abortion.
More to follow...
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