January 15, 2001

The Honorable President George W. Bush

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. President:

On behalf of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), I am writing to strongly urge you to support the bipartisan agreement to contribute $34 million to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) this fiscal year. 

Congress agreed to and approved a funding level of $34 million for UNFPA after long negotiations between appropriators, your administration, and the House and Senate leadership, and just last Thursday you signed the FY 2002 foreign aid appropriations bill into law.  In your FY 2002 budget request, you included $25 million for UNFPA.  As recently as October, your administration provided $600,000 to UNFPA to support its life-saving work with Afghan women.

I understand, however, that the administration is now considering withholding the U.S. contribution to UNFPA by invoking the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which prohibits funding to any organization that the President determines “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”  There is no evidence to support such an allegation against UNFPA.  All UNFPA-supported programs are entirely voluntary, and no credible source has ever found otherwise.  In fact, an independent fact-finding mission in October of 2001 found that UNFPA’s program in China is playing a catalytic role in moving the country from an administrative to a client-centered approach to the provision of reproductive health services.  Clearly, the few individuals who continue to levy unsubstantiated allegations about UNFPA’s work in China simply oppose family planning and, therefore, are out-of-step with the overwhelming majority of Americans who support family planning, including public funding for family planning services. 

UNFPA’s programs enable women and their families around the world obtain crucial health services that reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS, unintended pregnancy, and abortion, and save the lives of women and children.  Indeed, withholding the FY 02 U.S. contribution to UNFPA would have a tremendous impact, resulting in an estimated two million unwanted pregnancies, nearly 800,000 induced abortions, 4700 maternal deaths, nearly 60,000 cases of serious maternal illness, and over 77,000 infant and child deaths.

I urge you support women and their families around the world by honoring the overwhelming bipartisan consensus to contribute $34 million to UNFPA this fiscal year.

Sincerely,

Judith M. DeSarno

President and CEO

The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), founded in 1971, is a non-profit membership organization established to assure access to voluntary, comprehensive, and culturally sensitive family planning and reproductive health services and to support reproductive freedom for all.  NFPRHA represents over 4600 clinics that provide family planning and other reproductive health services to more than 4.5 million women across the U.S. each year.