|
Bush Says 'No' to UNFPA
(FNIF) President withholds money from United Nations Population Fund for another year.
The Bush administration has said "no" to another fiscal year of funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). That's good news for pro-family organizations who have been concerned about where that funding has been going.
According to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, the administration has continually called on China to end its program of coercive abortion, but the UNFPA has continued to assist China in its policies.
Since no key changes have taken place in the UNFPA to stop China's coercive abortion policy, the $34 million appropriated yearly to the UNFPA will not be given. Sarah Craven, the Washington representative for the UNFPA, said the group is disappointed by the decision.
"The money," she said, "is urgently needed to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS, prevent maternal deaths, provide family planning and reduce recourse to abortion."
But Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said the administration is just doing its job to find out whether the UNFPA participates in or supports coercive population control programs.
"The administration," Smith explained, "did its due diligence and found that the U.N. Population Fund indeed is supporting and co-managing coercive population control program in China."
Gary Bauer, founder and president of American Values, said this decision keeps American tax money out of bad policy.
"That effort has involved forced abortion, involuntary sterilization, it's a human tragedy and not one dollar of the taxpayers money should be going toward it," Bauer said. "The president made exactly the right decision."
The State Department did say that the United States would be prepared to reconsider funding UNFPA if its program in China is restructured in a way that is consistent with U.S. law.
© 2004 Focus on the Family
By: Keith Peters
Source: Family News in Focus
Publish Date: July 19, 2004
Online at: http://ifrl.org/IFRLDailyNews/040720/4
|
|
