WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- The Bush administration Monday announced it would withhold $34 million in funding set aside for the United Nations Population Fund, an overseas family planning initiative accused of supporting coercive abortions and involuntary sterilizations in China.
Conservatives have accused the group of supporting practices that are illegal under U.S. law.
Secretary of State Colin Powell decided that money earmarked for the U.N. Population Fund would instead be spent on programs administered by the United States Agency for International Development's Child Survival and Health Program Fund.
"While Americans have different views on the issues of abortion, I think all agree that no woman should be forced to have an abortion," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
The U.N. Population Fund estimates that the $34 million from the United States would have allowed the agency to prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies and more than 77,000 infant and child deaths.
"The denial of these funds will, unfortunately, significantly affect millions of women and children worldwide for whom the life-saving services provided by the UNFPA will have to be discontinued. Women and children will die because of this decision," said Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund.
"We regret this decision by the administration and hope that the United States will reconsider its stand and rejoin the community of nations working through UNFPA to save women's lives, to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to improve the quality of life for hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people," Obaid said.
The decision drew sharp fire from Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., who has fought to keep the organization's funding intact.
"As press reports indicate, this action today sends a message that when push comes to shove, the administration's right-wing base comes first. With (presidential adviser) Karen Hughes gone, (senior adviser) Karl Rove is left home alone, running U.S. foreign policy without supervision," Maloney said.
The National Right to Life Committee, a conservative group which opposes abortion called the U.N. Population Fund a "cheerleader and facilitator for China's birth-quota program which relies heavily on coerced abortion" said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson.
State Department officials said that after consideration of the law and all the information that's available, including the report from a team sent to China in the spring, the United States came to the conclusion that the U.N. Population Fund monies go to Chinese agencies "that carry out coercive programs."
The United States sent a team of emissaries to China in May to determine whether the U.N. group, an agency that provides family planning services to overpopulated countries, had operated in areas that practice forced abortions. U.S. law prohibits funding for organizations that promote or perform coercive abortions or involuntary sterilizations.
"The Bush administration, in withholding funds, accepted allegations that UNFPA gives tacit support to China's one-child policy just by working in China," Obaid said.
Republican Rep. Chris Smith, of New Jersey, vice chairman of the International Relations Committee, held hearings in October where he said the U.N. Population Fund "vigorously endorsed, extolled and shamefully encouraged the most anti-woman, Taliban-like policy in the world -- forced abortion." He accused the organization of being a party to "egregious human rights abuses against Chinese people -- especially women and children."
Smith's evidence came from the Population Research Institute, a non-governmental organization whose mission is to expose human rights abuses around the world in the name of population control. Later a U.N. investigation team went to China and disputed the evidence from the institute.
In a May 29 letter to Powell, the investigative team reported that during their 14-day visit to the People's Republic of China, they found no evidence that the U.N. group had knowingly supported or participated in coercive abortion or involuntary sterilizations.
"We are trying to promote quality family planning care and free choice, assisted deliveries and AIDS prevention," said Stirling Scruggs, a spokesman for the U.N. Population Fund said.
The fact-finding team in China recommended the United States release the $34 million to the group.
"It is disturbing that the U.S. administration has chosen to disregard the findings and recommendations of its own fact-finding mission, and also the will of the U.S. Congress that had approved $34 million in funding for UNFPA for 2002," Obaid said.
Terry O'Neill, a vice president with the Washington-based National Organization for Women, said the group's funding goes for much-needed birth control. Denying women the option to have contraception was "politically motivated," O'Neill said.
O'Neill said the administration could -- between now and the 2004 presidential elections -- be expected to take actions that appease the extreme conservative right groups which propelled Bush in to the presidency in 2000.
"How morally bankrupt you have to be to play politics with people's lives," O'Neill said.
(U.N. Correspondent William Reilly contributed to this report.)
