LIFE DIGEST: Bush administration again refuses funds for U.N. group
- Sep 18, 2007
The Bush administration has decided for the sixth consecutive year to withhold federal money from a controversial United Nations family planning fund linked to support of China’s coercive population control program.
Congress had designated $34 million for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), but the State Department again determined a grant to the organization would violate a 1985 law. That measure, known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment, prohibits family planning money from going to any entity that, as decided by the President, “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, commended the President’s decision. “Once again, President Bush has underscored his commitment to the sanctity of all human life, beginning at conception,” Land said.
Officials in many parts of China have practiced a forced family planning program for more than 25 years in an attempt to curb the birth rate in the world’s most populous country. A law codifying the policy throughout China went into effect in 2002.
The policy limits couples in urban areas to one child and those in rural areas to two, if the first is a girl. Other exceptions have been made in some provinces, and enforcement of the policy has varied among regions. The program has been marked by forced sterilization and abortion, but infanticide, especially of females, also has been reported.
The UNFPA has denied charges it supports coercive programs, but a State Department investigative team in 2002 reported the UNFPA provided computers and vehicles to Chinese population-control offices. The UNFPA continues to give support to China’s coercive program, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said in a Sept. 6 letter to a congressional leader.
As required by law, the State Department will transfer more than $22 million of the $34 million designated in this fiscal year for the UNFPA to the Child Survival and Health Programs Fund. That fund is part of the United States Agency for International Development.
The UNFPA’s involvement in China’s program has produced notoriety for an agency that provides family planning services in more than 150 countries.
Not In His Father’s Footsteps
Sen. Robert Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania may have begun to demonstrate he is not the type of pro-life Democrat his father was.
Casey’s father was a leading pro-life advocate in his two terms as Pennsylvania’s governor from 1987 to 1995, so much so that he was prevented from speaking at the 1992 national convention for a Democratic Party committed to abortion rights. The elder Casey died in 2000.
Though the younger Casey has been touted as a pro-lifer, one of his votes Sept. 6, plus his switch of another vote, has called that characterization into question.
On that date, Casey was one of two Democrats to vote for an amendment by Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., that would have restored the Mexico City policy, which was implemented by President Reagan and bars federal funds from being given to organizations that perform or promote abortions in foreign countries. The amendment to the Foreign Operations spending bill failed.
The new senator, however, had voted 20 minutes earlier for an amendment by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D.-Calif, an abortion rights advocate, that would have the opposite effect, according to National Review Online. Her measure, which passed 53-41, would negate the Mexico City policy and increase grants for organizations that promote abortions.
Casey’s votes appeared to be contradictory, but he resolved the confusion Sept. 10, NRO reported. On the pro-life, Brownback amendment, he said from the Senate floor, “[I]t was my intention to vote ‘nay.’ Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome of that vote.”
In the 2006 election, Casey ran as a pro-lifer and defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a leading advocate for policies that protect unborn children.
China Tries New Approach
The Chinese government apparently is threatening the credit rating of wealthy urban couples to discourage them from violating the country’s one-child policy.
A Sept. 13 entry on the Internet site of the National Population and Family Planning Commission said, according to the Associated Press, “In the future, city residents’ family planning violations will be entered in the credit system of the People’s Bank of China.”
The announcement did not clarify whether a person’s financial affairs would be affected, but it seemed to target rich couples who can afford to pay fines for having more than one child, AP reported.
Further Learning
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