On the fourth day as the United States President, Mr. Barack Obama decided to lift the restrictions on federal funding for international groups that support or provide abortions overseas.

This move that changes the policy of the Bush administration on that particular issue followed a similar one in which Mr. Obama ordered the closing of the Guntanamo Bay detention camp and of CIA’s overseas secret prisons.

Obama’s decision was received with cheers and applause by advocates of abortion rights. The ban meant that the clinics or groups offering family planning services or counseling did not have the right to receive federal money. Those restrictions were lifted on Friday as President Obama signed an executive order on the issue called the Mexico City Policy or the "gag rule."

Former President Bill Clinton, allowed federal funds to reach the groups that supported abortion, but former President George W. Bush reinstated it in January 2001.

President Obama noted that, for the past eight years, the Bush administration has undermined the efforts to promote voluntary family planning in developing countries and that it is right to rescind the policy in order to support efforts to “empower women and promote global economic development.”

Mr. Obama vowed to collaborate with Congress in order to provide financial support for the United Nations Population Fund. However, he complained about the “politicization” of abortion and promised to find a way to get all parties involved in this problem and work together to reduce unintended pregnancies.

“For too long international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back-and-forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate,” Obama said in a written statement.