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Bush Administration Holds Up Family Planning Funds
Women's Health and Lives At Risk
Jan 14 – One year after establishing a global gag rule on overseas non-governmental organizations providing family planning services and less than one month after Congress passed a carefully crafted, bipartisan compromise providing up to $34 million to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Bush Administration is contemplating a cut off in funding to the world leader in the field of international family planning. A decision to cut or eliminate UNFPA funding by the Administration would represent a startling reversal not only of legislation passed unanimously in the US Senate and by a 3-to-1 margin in the House, but also of previous Administration policy. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card will convene a meeting on Wednesday, January 16, 2001 reportedly to reach a final recommendation for President Bush to consider.
In his first budget proposal to Congress in early 2001, President Bush requested $25 million in funding for UNFPA. The Administration also approved the release of $21.5 million in fiscal 2001 funds for UNFPA after determining that UNFPA was in compliance with US law. In May, Secretary of State Colin Powell testified to Congress that UNFPA “provides critical population assistance to developing countries” (testimony before the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, May 10, 2001). Again in late 2001, the Administration signaled its support for UNFPA’s life-saving work by providing $600,000 in funding to support the agency’s work in support the health of Afghan refugees.
The loss of U.S. funding will have a devastating impact on UNFPA’s efforts to save women’s lives and provide family planning in more than 140 countries around the world. Experts indicate that $34 million in family planning funding is enough to prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies, nearly 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths; almost 60,000 maternal illnesses and more than 77,000 infant and child deaths.
Defunding UNFPA has long been advocated by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), a passionate opponent of family planning programs. In a letter to President Bush signed the day after his Congressional colleagues overwhelmingly rejected his position and supported UNFPA funding, Congressman Smith asked President Bush to withhold UNFPA funds because the agency operates a small program in China.
UNFPA’s program in China, approved by the Fund's Executive Board of 36-member States, adheres strictly to the highest standards of voluntarism and human rights. At the insistence of UNFPA, Chinese authorities have agreed to abolish family planning quotas and targets in the 32 Chinese counties in which it operates. An independent fact-finding mission in October 2001 found that found that the Fund's program in China is playing an important catalytic role in the reform of reproductive health services from an administrative approach to a client-oriented approach that promotes informed choice of contraceptive methods through information, education and counseling.
The positive impact of UNFPA’s effort in China was independently documented in the State Department’s 2001 Human Rights Report on China, which found that:
“Some counties have informed the general public about the UNFPA program and have eliminated the system of strict, government-assigned birth quotas (allowing couples to choose without authorization when to have their first child); other counties have not yet done so, or have only begun to do so. In Sichuan Province, a couple can legally have a second child without applying for permission if they meet all the requirements; however, regulations and implementation vary from town to town. The Government has welcomed foreign delegations to inspect the UNFPA project counties. Although access to these areas has varied from province to province, foreign diplomats visited several counties during the year.”
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