For Immediate Release:	July 23, 2002
For More Information:	Carole Mahoney, International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), cmahoney@icrw.org, 202/797-0007 x 131
Sponsor Organization:	International Center for Research on Women
“This decision further sacrifices good public health policy to narrow ideological politics."
Washington, DC–“The Administration today turned its back on millions of women in developing countries for whom access to reproductive health care and family planning services provides a ticket out of a life of poverty and ill-health,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, President of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). Dr. Rao Gupta was responding to the Bush Administration’s decision announced Monday that the U.S. will withhold $34 million in assistance to the U.N. Population Fund. “This decision will further damage U.S. credibility and undermine U.S. leadership in the community of nations,” said Rao Gupta. “By withholding U.S. funds to UNFPA, the U.S. is withdrawing reproductive and family planning assistance to six of the ten poorest countries on the face of the earth.” Those countries are: the Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Burundi, Burkina Faso, and Niger. “This decision further sacrifices good public health policy to narrow ideological politics. It cuts off U.S. funding to some 40 countries served by UNFPA, and shifts the funds into U.S. government programs prohibited by President Bush from providing the full range of information about family planning and reproductive health options.”