The turn to the right was stunningly quick. On his first day in office, President Bush cut all international family planning funds to organizations that also perform abortions. It makes no difference that these organizations use no taxpayer funds-only private contributions--for abortion counseling or procedures. It makes no difference that these organizations save hundreds of thousands of women's lives a year. He wanted to appease his party's right wing.

According to a spokesman for anti-choice groups, the President's action was appropriate because taxpayer dollars were being used to promote and perform abortions abroad. How disingenuous! As someone who is well-informed about the facts, this spokesman knew full well that family planning agencies rigorously segregate their public and private funds.

It is ironic that those who most strongly oppose abortion also want to deprive women of their only means of avoiding unwanted pregnancies-family planning help. Unwanted pregnancies obviously increase unwanted abortions. This is simple common sense.

Nonetheless, our new president has chosen to deny women the help they desperately need, the help that would reduce the number of abortions everywhere. There are other terrible impacts on poor families around the world as well.

According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, 585,000 women world-wide die from pregnancy-related causes every year. That means that every minute, somewhere in the world, a woman is dying because of her pregnancy. The fate of these women's families is equally appalling. In poor countries, infants whose mothers die in childbirth have a 90% chance of dying themselves during their first year of life. Older motherless children face hunger, illness and even death. Family planning alone can reduce maternal deaths by 25%. Family planning alone can improve the well-being of countless families.

USAID also points out that each year, more than 75,000 women around the world die from unsafe abortions. Why wouldn't we all prefer that they had contraceptives so that they didn't have to seek unsafe abortions?

Mothers do not want to watch their children die of starvation or disease because they can't take care of them. More than 150,000,000 women worldwide want to limit or space their pregnancies, but do not have the money for contraception. How many of their unwanted pregnancies will doom them or their children to misery or death?

Then there is the AIDS epidemic. How heartbreaking when women with AIDS give birth to babies with AIDS. I know that those who cheer the president's new ruling also despair over these tiny deaths. But, their anti-family planning policies conflict with their hearts.

Over 90% of Americans believe individuals should have access to family planning services wherever they live. Most Americans are deeply worried about the population explosion, particularly in poor countries that have difficulty feeding their people. If there is one single, inexpensive way we as a nation can help the developing world, it is to provide women who want to plan their families the help they seek when they need it. To refuse to do so dooms millions of mothers and their families to lives of wretchedness and destitution.

There is an additional irony here. Family planning organizations have meticulously segregated taxpayer funds from private contributions so that public money goes only for contraceptive and health care, not for abortion information. Their accounting must demonstrate this clear division to all who might question their use of funds. In Colorado, these agencies were even required to set up two separate corporations to ensure the segregation of funds.

Yet, when President Bush unveiled his plan to provide taxpayer funding to "faith-based" initiatives, a double standard appeared. Some religious organizations that fought to eliminate public funding for family planning agencies offering abortion information objected to any restrictions on using public funds to support their religious message, even if many taxpayers object to it.

Women can't afford double standards. The president may tout his "faith-based" social services plan as "compassionate conservatism". He may call it "committed, caring and compassionate." On the fate of mothers and families around the world, however, there is nothing committed nor caring nor compassionate about his plan.