April 4, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Pro-life leaders thanked and praised President Trump today for removing U.S. funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) over its participation in China's forced abortion regime.
Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, said she is “thrilled that the U.S. is no longer funding forced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China.”
“UNFPA is one of the most wicked organizations in the world,” Austin Ruse, President of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), told LifeSiteNews. “Defunding them is a no-brainer for a pro-life administration and for this we are grateful. However, we expect much more from President Trump and we look forward to much more.”
This will hopefully include Trump “unsigning various UN treaties,” said Ruse.
“I have consistently advocated for the defunding of UNFPA over the years, most recently just a couple of weeks ago at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women,” said Littlejohn. “Last month, I also briefed the State Department on continuing coercion, including forced abortion, under China’s Two-Child Policy.”
Her message at the Status of Women meeting encouraged the United States Secretary of State to investigate and evaluate UNFPA’s activities in China. Littlejohn also advocated that the President defund UNFPA under the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which “prohibits funding for any organization or program that, as determined by the President, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
According to a letter from the U.S. State Department to Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Kemp-Kasten Amendment is why the country will not be contributing to UNFPA during 2017. BuzzFeed published a copy of the letter.
“The Chinese Government employs measures such as coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization to carry out its population-control policies,” a memo attached to the letter said.
“UNFPA first began its program in China in 1978,” the memo continued. “All of the organization's programs in China are subject to national laws and local regulations, including the Population and Family Planning Law and the corresponding provincial implementing regulations that provide the framework for the country's coercive birth policies…By implementing a portion of its family planning program in partnership with [the Chinese government], UNFPA provides support for the NHFPC's implementation of China's family planning policies, which includes coercive elements.”
Pro-life women: Thankfully, Trump is keeping his promises
“The UNFPA clearly supports China’s population control program, which they know is coercive,” said Littlejohn. “Under China’s One (now Two) Child Policy, women have been forcibly aborted up to the ninth month of pregnancy. Some of these forced abortions have been so violent that the women themselves have died, along with their full term babies.”
There have also been “brutal forced sterilizations,” said Littlejohn, “butchering women and leaving them disabled.”
“Where was the outcry from the UNFPA?” she asked. “The UNFPA’s silence in the face of decades of forced abortion has been a sword in the wombs of millions of women and babies of China. I rejoice with them that the foot of the UNFPA is finally off of their necks.”
Arina Grossu, Director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, said it's “very” encouraging Trump has moved to “enforce current law preventing US taxpayer dollars [from going] to entities that participate in coercive abortion practices.”
“An estimated 405 million children have been tragically killed by abortion in China,” due to the One (now Two) Child policy, said Grossu. “Trump is keeping good on his pro-life promises. For many years, the UNFPA has been the seedbed of abortion promotion around the world and we are glad to see the State Department recognize this fact in its determination.”
“The Trump Administration is continuing to disrupt the abortion industry on an international level,” Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America, told LifeSiteNews. One of Trump's first executive actions was reinstating the “Mexico City Policy,” which bans government funding of foreign pro-abortion groups like the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
“We should all be able to agree that forced abortions are a horrific violation of human rights,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List. “It is sickening to think of our tax dollars supporting such abuse of women and children. We commend President Trump for standing up for women and protecting taxpayers from funding forced abortions.”
'The blood of Chinese women and babies will no longer be on our hands'
“We want to thank the Trump administration,” Stephen Phelan, Director of Mission Communications for Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews. The U.S. defunding UNFPA “sends a signal to the world that the U.S. taking this seriously again…Anyone who truly respects rights, women's freedom, and women's reproductive health should celebrate this decision.”
The UNFPA is “involved in coercive family planning programs in a number of countries around the world,” Steve Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute, told LifeSiteNews. He said China's coercive family planning program is the most well-known, but the UNFPA collaborates with similar ones in Vietnam and North Korea.
“In North Korea, the UN Population Fund has offices and is encouraging these brutal, dictatorial regimes to drive down their birthrate by forced abortion and forced sterilization policies,” said Mosher. The UNFPA “does not deserve one dime of U.S. taxpayers' money.”
“The evidence is clear,” said Mosher, noting there are “agents of the United Nations Population Fund who are paid by the United Nations Population Fund are carrying out these policies in different parts of China. This is why we were able to get the Bush administration” to cut off UNFPA's funding in the early 2000s.
President Obama reversed that, allowing the U.S. to return to funding UNFPA.
Now, $32.5 million, instead of going to the UNFPA, will go to a US Agency for International Development (USAID) account for “family planning and reproductive health.”
“Priests for Life says 'Bravo!' to President Trump,” Father Frank Pavone, the group's National Director, told LifeSiteNews. “This is long overdue, and is not at all a surprise, because we know of the President's strong pro-life commitment.”
“People should not be deceived” about forced abortions supposedly ending in China, Pavone said. “Whether China places its policy at one or two children, they are still practicing forced abortion, and that is a grave violation of human rights. I am proud to know Chen Guancheng, the Chinese activist who was punished severely for standing up against China's coercive abortion policy. His witness is an encouragement to the United States to remove all support from such tyrannical practices.”
According to a Washington Times report, UNFPA’s former head, Dr. Nafis Sadik, was awarded the Population Prize Award by the Chinese State Family Planning Commission in 2002.
In her acceptance speech in Beijing, Sadik praised China’s population control program. “Looking back, I feel a great sense of pride for the Chinese Government and people for their support to UNFPA and to me, personally, I also feel proud that UNFPA made the wise decision to resist external pressures and continued its fruitful cooperation with China,” she said.
In 1999, UNFPA representative Sven Burmester said, “China has had the most successful family planning policy in the history of mankind in terms of quantity and with that, China has done mankind a favor.”
“The blood of Chinese women and babies will no longer be on our hands,” said Littlejohn.