Posted on 07/23/2002 3:03:51 AM PDT by ppaul
WASHINGTON, July 22 — In a rebuff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the Bush administration said today that it would not contribute to a United Nations agency that it contends provides aid to Chinese government agencies that force women to have abortions. At his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Secretary Powell praised the agency, the United Nations Population Fund, for its "invaluable work." A State Department fact-finding mission in May found no evidence that the program "knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."
But the administration reversed course and decided to withhold a previously approved $34 million in aid, citing a 1985 law that bars funds to any international organization that the president determines "supports or participates in the management" of forced abortion or sterilization.
The decision drew warm praise from anti-abortion groups but brought an outcry from supporters of abortion rights. It also underscored long-running tensions within the administration between Mr. Bush's conservative advisers, like his political mastermind, Karl Rove, and more moderate officials, like Secretary Powell, as the White House heads into midterm elections eager to energize its political base.
Under the 1985 law, known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment, the secretary of state is authorized to determine whether international agencies receiving American funds are involved in forced abortions or involuntary sterilization. That puts Secretary Powell in the uncomfortable position of announcing a policy that he had resisted.
When the official announcement was made today, it was in the name of the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, not Secretary Powell. Mr. Boucher took some pains to say the secretary had followed the recommendations of an interagency task force of lawyers and other officials.
One Congressional aide said Secretary Powell's deputy, Richard L. Armitage, had recently sought to assure a top Democratic lawmaker that the department was doing what it could to preserve financing for the United Nations program.
Instead, the money will be distributed by the State Department's own Agency for International Development, which operates in about 80 countries, compared with 142 for the United Nations group.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, expressed satisfaction at the decision. He said the United Nations program "is a cheerleader and facilitator for China's birth-quota program, which relies heavily on coerced abortion."
Many Congressional Democrats, however, asserted just the reverse, arguing that the administration's interpretation of Kemp-Kasten was so broad as to put at risk American aid to the World Health Organization, Unicef, the Export-Import Bank and even the State Department.
Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, said of Secretary Powell, "I do not hold him responsible for what is clearly a blatantly political decision by the White House."
The Population Fund, which provides family planning and reproductive-health services, has been a political hot potato for years. During the administration of President Bush's father, the United States withdrew all contributions, as it also did during some years of the Clinton administration when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.
By law, the United Nations program is already barred from using United States money in China, and many Democrats and some Republicans complained today that withholding the $34 million would unfairly punish scores of other countries where funds are needed.
Though Congress had approved the funds last winter, and Mr. Bush signed the bill, it did not demand that the money be spent. Under standard appropriations procedures, Mr. Bush retained the power to decide on the level of financing for the program. The administration had initially sought $25 million for the program, up from $21.5 million.
The population program spends about $270 million a year worldwide, roughly $3.5 million of it in China, which last year went to finance programs that included a book on women's reproductive health and other materials to explain the nature of informed consent for patients, said a spokesman for the agency, Stirling Scruggs. "We've never been involved in coercion in China or in any place in the world," he said.
But in a letter to members of Congress today, Secretary Powell said that "regardless of the modest size" of the program in China "or any benefits its programs provide," the agency's "support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion."
A three-page legal analysis by the State Department noted that in one of the 32 Chinese counties in which the program operates, the government imposes fines of two to three times the annual income of both parents if they have more than the officially approved number of children, usually only one. Fines are doubled for repeat violations.
The analysis said even a seemingly innocent United Nations contribution like computers "is used to establish a database record of all women of child-bearing age in an area, and to trigger the issuance of `birth-not-allowed notices' " and the fines.
The State Department dispatched its fact-finding team to China last spring after internal administration disputes dragged on about whether to withhold the money. It found no evidence of direct United Nations involvement in coercive abortion or forced sterilization, and recommended that the administration release the $34 million to the United Nations, while continuing to withhold United States funds for China itself for any of its population programs.
But it also found continued use by Chinese authorities of "coercive elements in law and practice," and said the United Nations program lacked adequate resources to monitor the extent of the problem.
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who had lobbied strongly for release of the money, accused the administration of political calculations.
"Just months ago, in their attempts to appeal to `soccer moms,' the administration said they cared about women around the world," she said. "This action today sends a message that when push comes to shove, the administration's right-wing base comes first."
But a senior State Department official insisted that Secretary Powell's decision was effectively mandated by the requirements of the law and what the official said was widespread evidence of coercive practices.
In a rebuff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the Bush administration said today that it would not contribute to a United Nations agency that it contends provides aid to Chinese government agencies that force women to have abortions. At his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Secretary Powell praised the agency, the United Nations Population Fund, for its "invaluable work."Kudos to President Bush for this rebuff of Powell and his State Dept. cronies who never tire of kissing the UN bureaucrats' slimy asses, and paying for more the deaths of infants and more worldwide government corruption with our tax dollars.
What an interesting reaction from the so-called "pro-choice" crowd. An organization that forces women to have abortions and they support that? Doesnt sound like a "woman's right to choose" is their agenda at all, now does it?
You are so right! You would think that those who "cared about women around the world" would care that some are forced into various forms of forced abortion and that failing that, infanticide is then carried out. And not only on the basis of 'over-population', it is also an effective racial 'cleansing' method to kill children of Korean and/or Japanese paternity.
long-running tensions within the administration between Mr. Bush's conservative advisers, like his political mastermind, Karl Rove, and more moderate officials, like Secretary Powell
What is so moderate about ripping up babies? Is that how one gets to be "moderate", by helping people rip up unborn babies and dissovling them in chemicals?
They better look that word up. I don't think it means what they think it means.
Sorry, but the American taxpayer does not owe the world family planning services.
To quote Bart Simpsom, "Overload. Pleasure Overload!"
I don't know which is better, that Bush is cutting funding to a UN organization, that he is cutting funding that goes to provide abortions, or that he is sticking it in Peacenik Powell's eye.
Nope. Not one cent. If some private organization wants to contribute, that's their prerogative.
I don't know which is better, that Bush is cutting funding to a UN organization, that he is cutting funding that goes to provide abortions, or that he is sticking it in Peacenik Powell's eye.Yeah.
put at risk American aid to the World Health Organization, Unicef, the Export-Import Bank and even the State Department.
Really? Cool...Very cool.
What ... just because they've the stones to admit "abortion is vital to the solution" to their coercive campaign of "Education" and other prongs of population control necessary to ensure folks understand the "Voluntary" nature of our programs?
July 23, 2002
THE United States is withdrawing millions of dollars in funding for the UN Population Fund (UNPFA) over claims the agency promotes abortion and forced sterilisation of women in China.
"Secretary of State Colin Powell has decided ... that US funds for family planning and public health will go through USAID (the US Agency for International Development) and not through the UNPFA," said US state department spokesman Richard Boucher.
The move is in line with the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, passed by Congress in 1985, which denies US funding for coercive abortion or involuntary sterilisation, as determined by the President.
The decision accompanied the release of a report conducted by a three-person panel which travelled to China in May to review UNFPA's work there.
UNFPA's activities have come under fire from conservative US lawmakers and supporters of President George W. Bush for promoting abortion as part of its work with China on the country's "one-child" policy.
But the agency, a key source of funding to population control programs in developing countries, has denied funding abortions or coercive family planning practices in China.
U.S. Blocks Money forFamily Clinicsabortion mills Promoted by U.N.
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