Each year some 47,000 women around the world die as a result of unsafe abortions. Efforts to reduce that toll are severely hampered by the Helms amendment, which was originally enacted in 1973 and restricts the use of United States foreign aid money to finance abortions overseas, even in places where abortion is legal.

President Obama can significantly reduce the harm by directing the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development to reject a longstanding misinterpretation of the amendment under which aid cannot be used to help women whose lives are endangered or in cases of rape or incest.

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