For the Record

The decision provoked a firestorm of Bush Bars UNFPA Funding, Bucking negative reaction in Congress and in Recommendation of Its Own Investigators the media nationwide. Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations Handing a major political victory to impact of doing so. Indeed, an inves- Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy anti–birth control groups and their tigative team of British parliamentar- (D-VT) deemed it “an embarrass- congressional champions led by Rep. ians unanimously concluded in April ment and a travesty.” “It is ludi- Chris Smith (R-NJ), the Bush admin- that “the UNFPA program [in China] crous,” he said, “that because there istration officially announced on is a force for good.” is coercion in China—coercion we July 21 it was cutting off all U.S. all know about and deplore—the support for the United Nations In May, a three-member U.S. team, Administration is barring all U.S. Population Fund (UNFPA). Earlier, handpicked by the , was support for use anywhere by the the administration itself had asked dispatched to China to see for itself. world’s largest family planning orga- Congress to approve $25 million in Although the contents of its report nization….UNFPA’s mission is to its FY 2002 budget, with Secretary of to Powell were kept secret for two promote alternatives to coercion and State Colin L. Powell telling months after its return, the team and to prevent the spread Congress that UNFPA “does invalu- had recommended on May 29 that of AIDS, and that is exactly what able work through its programs in the $34 million approved by UNFPA should be doing [in China]. maternal and child health care, vol- Congress should be released, stating We do not send foreign aid to coun- untary family planning, screening for that they found “no evidence” that tries that are doing everything reproductive tract cancers, breast- UNFPA is in violation of the Kemp- right—we send it to try to make feeding promotion, and HIV/AIDS Kasten provision. things better. That is also UNFPA’s prevention.” In December 2001, mission.” Congress had endorsed funding at Nevertheless, the president deter- $34 million. mined otherwise, and he instructed At this juncture, Congress must Powell to notify Congress that the force the administration’s hand if Nonetheless, Smith and his support- administration would be redirecting UNFPA is to receive any U.S. funding ers—with the blessing of House the $34 million to the U.S. Agency in the near term. A Leahy provision Speaker J. (R-IL), for International Development’s that would do so has been written Majority Leader (R-TX) (USAID) reproductive health pro- into the Senate version of the FY and Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R- gram. Powell’s letter to Congress 2003 foreign aid bill that has been TX)—applied steady pressure on the deems UNFPA guilty by its associa- approved by the appropriations com- administration to defund UNFPA tion with the Chinese government. mittee but has yet to be considered entirely, citing the 1985 “Kemp- The case rests on the fact that of the by the full Senate. Similarly, House Kasten” amendment making funding $5 million (in non-U.S. funds) Foreign Operations Subcommittee contingent on an annual determina- UNFPA spends in China, UNFPA pro- Chairman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) has tion by the president that UNFPA vides about $200,000 to the Chinese included language in the version does not “support or participate in State Family Planning Commission approved by the House the management of a program of (SFPC). It is the SFPC that imposes Appropriations Committee that he coercive abortion or involuntary “social compensation fees” upon believes could accomplish the same sterilization.” By having a program Chinese couples that exceed their goal, but it too awaits consideration in China at all, they argued, UNFPA birth quotas under the Chinese one- by the full House. Meanwhile, the was supporting China’s strict popula- child-per-family policy. Even though $34 million from FY 2002 remains in tion-control policies, which are “arguments can be made that limbo, not available for UNFPA but widely acknowledged to result in UNFPA is undertaking good-faith still not approved by key members coercive practices on the ground. educational and other efforts to of Congress for use by USAID until improve the lives of the people of further negotiations concerning UNFPA’s supporters argued just the [China] and assist them in family UNFPA take place.—S. Cohen opposite, that UNFPA’s program in planning decisions,” Powell’s letter China constituted a model for the states, the agency’s funding to the Chinese government of how to pro- SFPC “allows the Chinese govern- vide family planning services on a ment to implement more effectively voluntary basis and the positive its program of coercive abortion.”

The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy October 2002 13