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Us accusses UN family planning of forcing abortions { July 17 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/07/17/us_again_denies_money_to_population_fund/http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/07/17/us_again_denies_money_to_population_fund/
US again denies money to population fund
Chinese practices on abortion cited
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | July 17, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration announced yesterday that it is withholding the United States' contribution to the UN Population Fund for the third straight year, once again accusing the family-planning organization of supporting coercive abortion in China.
The decision to withhold $34 million -- about 10 percent of the fund's total budget -- from the world's largest international source of funding for family planning came on the last day of the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, where US officials emphasized abstinence as an important way to combat AIDS.
In Washington, family-planning activists and some members of Congress said the decision was a political move to curry favor with conservative voters who want to restrict family-planning practices worldwide. Some cited a 2002 investigation by a State Department team and a 2003 State Department human rights report, which both said that the fund was working to combat coercive family-planning practices in China.
''Our own State Department gave the UNFPA a clean bill of health," US Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat, told reporters. ''Once again, President Bush right before an election is appealing to a conservative base. They are putting millions of women and children at risk with this decision."
But the Bush administration said the fund's cooperation with Chinese government programs amounted to support of the country's coercive practices, which it said include forced sterilization and abortion.
''We recognize that the aim of the UN Population Fund is to promote a transition to truly voluntary family planning in China, but the circumstances of their operations are such that they are assisting the Chinese in managing their programs," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. ''These Chinese programs have penalties that amount to coercion."
Boucher said the State Department had concluded that the US government was prohibited from giving the funds because of the 1985 Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for organizations that support forced sterilization or abortion.
One of the first acts of Bush's presidency was reinstating the ''Mexico City Policy," which prohibits federal funding for overseas groups that support abortion.
Initially, the Bush administration showed support for the Population Fund. During his confirmation hearing, Powell praised the fund's ''invaluable work" and released $25 million for the fund in 2001, according to Sarah Craven, the fund's Washington representative. In 2002, Congress increased the figure to $34 million.
But the administration opted to hold up the funds after Bush received a letter in February 2002 urging him to do so from three Republican leaders in Congress. Richard Armey of Texas, who was House majority leader at the time; Tom DeLay of Texas, who was majority whip; and Dennis J. Hastert of Illinois, speaker of the House, wrote that the fund essentially ''participates in the management" of China's coercive family-planning programs.
In 2002, Powell dispatched a team to China to look into the allegations. It reported finding ''no evidence that the UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."
The report was overruled by Powell as being ''only one piece of the picture," according to one State Department official, and funds were withheld.
In 2003, the State Department's annual human rights report noted that the fund had helped bring reform to China's family-planning policies in the 32 areas where it worked.
''Under this program, local birth-planning officials emphasized education, improved reproductive health services, and economic development, and they eliminated the target and quota systems for limiting births," the report states. ''Subsequently, 800 other counties also removed the target and quota system and tried to replicate the UNFPA project by emphasizing quality of care and informed choice of birth control methods."
Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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