Several reports issued at the time illustrated just how devastating Bush's policy had become. By 2002 USAID had ended shipments of contraceptives to 16 developing nations in Africa and Asia as a direct consequence of the gag rule.

"Hundreds of women are dying every day in poor countries from botched abortions," says Barbara Crane, executive vice-president of the North Carolina-based reproductive rights organisation IPAS, who wrote me by email last week. "By repeatedly cutting the budget for international family planning and putting in place the global gag rule, the supposedly 'pro-life' Bush administration ignores this tragic reality - and without doubt causes more unsafe abortions, posing high costs to women, their families and society at large. It is ironic that the same groups that oppose abortion rarely step up and support better access to contraception."

I usually take a moderate stance in the abortion issue. If you get raped or your child is expected to be born with severe defects, abortion seems like a good idea. When abortion becomes a tool to be able to live a careless lifestyle without the consequences, it promotes degenerate behaviour among people. So we need to apply abortion with common sense, and even more, point out that no life is nor should be sacred, especially not when we're facing worldwide overpopulation problems.

Monty Python joked about this a long time ago, and it's still relevant today: