Bush administration withholds $34m from family planning fund

[delirious]

US again denies money to population fund

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."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/07/17/us_again_denies_money_to_population_fund/

No, everyone just hates the US because they're "socialists", not because it's actions are closed-minded, out-of-touch and abrasive

The only thing Bush and his team worry about is their home supporters, NOT what the world thinks of the US. They are the absolute worst people to be fighting a war of terror.. a war as much about the winning of hearts-and-minds of people as it the battlefield.

[Balanc3]

abstinence is a crock of shit. afterall we are all sexual beings. Bush needs to be more concerned about teen pregnancy, stds, and aids in the states although its an issue worldwide.

[FM]

shit yes, but really the only near-100% way to avoid it...(not perfect still, due to blood, saliva, etc.)...

but the next best/better metholody is use a condom et al...do it right and you'll have little to no worries...

[brakada]

So, the "Condom War" continues...

[delirious]

What you believe re: abstinence is your choice. However, when you force other people to submit to your beliefs, almost by economic blackmail, that's a very different story.

If Bush and his team were really interested in making friends with developing regions, why is it taking such petty decisions that anger moderate people in countries that used to respect the US?

By all means, promote abstinence, but don't deny aid to impoverished nations just because their states permit and give abortions to their people.