Following Kaimi’s provocative suggestion (#113), I’d argue that you could take Raymond’s comment comment (and like-minded sentiment throughout this thread) as essentially articulating a defense of actions like the boycotts against yes-on-8 donors. Even if you think that $5 is a fair price for a burrito, and you are paying El Coyote for a burrito (not paying them to donate to yes-on-8), you would prefer to give your $5 to a no-on-8 taco shop rather than a yes-on-8 taco shop.

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/pop/restrictions.html

Quote:

The Helms Amendment

No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.

An executive order (what Obama did) cannot override this law, because the executive branch must follow laws passed by congress (ignore what Nixon said in the Frost/Nixon interview–he was wrong; presidents are bound by the law).

Of course, there should be oversight to ensure that this law is being followed, i.e. that the accounting measures Steve outlined in #110 are being followed.

I realize I’m a bit late to this thread, but just to be very, very clear…

The “dilation and curretage” procedure mentioned in #53 is very often not an “abortion” procedure at all and should in no way be interpreted as church endorsement or funding of elective abortions. Without going into too much gore here, there are a whole stack of reasons why women may need to have one.

As a semi-related general word of caution, medical professionals often will casually refer to this procedure as a “D&C.” Without getting too graphic here, my being aware of this association has influenced me (FWIW) to try and be very careful in public settings, when referring to that certain book of LDS scripture, to always refer to it as the “Doctrine and Covenants”, knowing that for many women* the term “D&C” has some pretty nasty associations.

*…including my wife, who needed a D&C (to save her life) *after* delivering the (intact) dead body of our stillborn first child.

Fair enough. My mistake.

“I still can’t see how money coming into the bank doesn’t translate to money going out for expenses.”

It’s fairly simple, actually. Many multipurpose charitable organizations have multiple directed accounts or budgets; when donors place directed conditions of use on their donations, those organizations designate the funds to go into accounts which only certain segments are authorized to touch. I suppose your concern would be more valid if you were dealing with a very small organization or business with a single bank account or no internal accounting system to ensure that funds are not internally mishandled. But if I give money say to the United Way and direct that the funds be used towards a specific arm of their organization, that’s how they’ll be used. Same with organizations that have contraceptive or abortion-related services.