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Letter Signed by Bipartisan Group of 55 Members of Congress Asking President Bush to Zero-Fund UNFPA

January 31, 2002

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20502

Dear Mr. President:

We write to respectfully request that you provide zero funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) this year because the UNFPA supports coercive abortion and sterilization and therefore is in violation of our conscience and our law.

Now that Congress has passed a Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that preserves Presidential discretion to control how much U.S. government funding the UNFPA receives, and restates the prohibition on funding any organization or program which supports or participates in coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization, you need only look at the evidence of abuses by UNFPA and make a determination based on the facts.

As you know, you have the authority according to current law, referred to as the Kemp-Kasten amendment, to deny funding to the UNFPA. The conference report on H.R. 2506, the Fiscal Year 2002 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, included the following Kemp-Kasten anti-coercion language in the General Provisions of the United States Agency for International Development Child Survival and Health Programs Fund:

"Provided further, That none of the funds made available in this Act nor any unobligated balances from prior appropriations may be made available to any organization or program which, as determined by the President of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization:"

The Kemp-Kasten language has been included in foreign operations bills since 1985. President Reagan and President George H. W. Bush found that the UNFPA supports and participates in China's brutally coercive one-child policy thereby violating Kemp-Kasten and disqualifying UNFPA from receiving any federal funding. The U.S. boycotted UNFPA during those administrations because of the UNFPA's heavy involvement in China's compulsory abortion and sterilization program. The Agency for International Development (AID) officially declared that UNFPA "participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion" as defined in the law. That declaration was challenged in a lawsuit filed by the UNFPA-funded Population Institute, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled on August 16, 1986 that the evidence presented by AID "amply supports" the AID cutoff of the UNFPA.

The simple fact that the UNFPA gives money to China's population control program is enough to legally and morally disqualify them from receiving a subsidy from the United States. By operating in China, spending money there, and defending the Chinese population control system, the UNFPA clearly supports a program of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. But the UNFPA does more than simply operate in China.

On October 17, the House International Relations Committee heard testimony from an undercover fact finding team that was sent to Sihui, which is a UNFPA county in China where the UNFPA told Congress that abortion and sterilization are voluntary, to investigate claims of forced abortion. Investigators received testimony from many victims and witnesses of coercion, and as formal interviews were being conducted and recorded, bystanders often gathered and began to tell their own stories of coercion.

The investigators were told that family planning is not voluntary in Sihui, and coercive family planning policies in Sihui include: age requirements for pregnancy; birth permits; mandatory use of IUDs; mandatory sterilization; crippling fines for non-compliance; imprisonment for non-compliance; destruction of homes and property for non-compliance; forced abortion and forced sterilization.

At a January 24 press conference, Mrs. Gao Xiao Duan, who served for 14 years as a planned birth officer in the Fujian province of China, publicly stated, "I do know that any organization that is contributing to China's population control policy is encouraging these officials to implement forced abortion, sterilization and punishments ranging from detainment to house destruction as means of enforcement."

Time and again, high officials of the UNFPA have defended the indefensible and called voluntary that which is anything but. In her own words, the former Executive Director of the UNFPA Nafis Sadik said "China has every reason to feel proud of and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its family planning policy. The country could offer its experiences and special expertise to help other countries." Sven Burmester, UNFPA's representative in Beijing, praised China's program when he said, "In strictly quantitative terms, it was the most successful family- planning policy ever developed."

An honest investigation will show UNFPA's complicity in forced abortion and sterilization, which should disqualify them from receiving government funding. We do not want our constituents to have to support human rights violations with their tax dollars.

Following are the Members of Congress who signed the letter:
Smith, Chris / Pence / Ney / Vitter / Souder / Pitts / King / Kerns / Shows / Berry / Shimkus / Hayes / Bartlett / Jones, W / Phelps / Paul / Doolittle, John / Pickering / Costello Wamp / Goode / Davis, J / Chris Cox / Myrick / Toomey / Flake/ DeMint / Aderholt / Herger / Gutknecht / Istook / Boozman / Chabot / Shadegg / English / Sensenbrenner/ Crane/ Combest/ Buyer/ Hostetler/ Tancredo/ LaHood/Miller, Gary / Cantor / Brady, Kevin / Blunt /Grucci / Barr / Schaffer /Ryun, Jim / Forbes / Duncan Stearns / Largent / Weldon, Dave

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