WASHINGTON, July 23, 2002 (LSN.ca) – The Bush administration has cancelled the $34 million Congress had set aside for U.N. family-planning programs overseas, including population-control initiatives that include abortions and forced sterilizations in China. The move to de-fund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was met with predictable outrage from pro-abortion groups that use international agencies like UNFPA to promote their contraceptive-abortive agenda in developing countries. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher explained that “some of the funds would be used to support coercive Chinese family planning programs which under U.S. law the U.S. government is not permitted to support.” Under the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act, “none of the funds available in this Act…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.” However, the White House nullified this positive step by shifting the funds to USAID, the United States foreign aid body, which has an equally black record of promoting anti-life policies. Pro-life concerns remain with the reallocation of $34 million to the agency’s Child Survival and Health Program Fund, where the money will still be used for “family planning and reproductive health care activities.”
For LifeSite coverage of USAID practices see: USAID SPONSORED SEXUAL ADS GREATLY OFFEND MALAWI RELIGIOUS LEADERS https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/jun/02061702.html USAID LEAVES $137 MILLION UNACCOUNTED FOR IN POPULATION REPORT https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/may/02052802.html USAID SUPPORTING FORCED STERILIZATION IN PERU? https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/mar/00031602.html To read the U.S. Department of State press release on UNFPA funding see: https://usinfo.state.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=02072206.tlt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml