Abortion Junket ‘Investigates’ UNFPA Operations in China

September 5, 2003

Volume 5/ Number 25

Dear Colleague:

It is a measure of UNFPA’s desperation that they now seek religious sanction for their unconscionable involvement in China’s one-child policy. A group claiming to be comprised of religious leaders is traveling to China to report on UNFPA operations. All of the members of this group oppose the Kemp-Kasten Amendment. All are pro-abortion. One of them is on record as supporting coercion. None are from mainstream religious groups.

The goal of this pro-abortion junket is clear. To try to restore the U.S. contribution to the UNFPA, despite UNFPA’s support of forced abortion in China.

Steven Mosher

President

Abortion Junket ‘Investigates’ UNFPA Operations in China

As the U.S. Congress prepares to zero-out U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a group which claims to be comprised of religious leaders is investigating UNFPA operations in China.

Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to retain the Kemp-Kasten amendment in the State Department Authorization bill. Kemp-Kasten prevents U.S. funds from going to organizations that support forced abortion and forced sterilization. Pursuant to Kemp-Kasten, the U.S. Secretary of State cut funds from the UNFPA because of its support of China’s coercive population program.

This will be the third such junket to China since PRI sent an independent team of researchers to investigate coercion in UNFPA model counties. UNFPA itself helped fund the previous two junkets which sought to exonerate UNFPA. It is likely the case that the U.S. Committee for the UNFPA is largely behind this venture.

This “religious” group includes the following people:

Frances Kissling, President, Catholics for a Free Choice: Ms. Kissling brags that she has been actively pro-abortion since the early 1970s when she directed one of the first family planning clinics to provide legal abortions in the United States.(1) As such, she has been actively dissenting from orthodox Catholicism and promoting the Culture of Death for more than three decades.

Ms. Kissling was a co-founder of the National Abortion Federation (whose mission is to keep abortion, safe, legal and accessible(2), and now leads the dissenting organization called Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). Catholics for a Free Choice is affiliated with dozens of other rabidly pro-abortion, radical feminist groups and is nothing more than a high profile media relations group who sole purpose is to undermine the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church while using the name Catholic to confuse authentic faithful.

In May 2000, the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) issued the following statement on Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC):

“CFFC is, practically speaking, an arm of the abortion lobby in the United States and throughout the world. It is an advocacy group dedicated to supporting abortion. It is funded by a number of powerful and wealthy private foundations, mostly American, to promote abortion as a method of population control. This position is contrary to existing United Nations policy and the laws and policies of most nations of the world.*(3)

In response, Ms. Kissling claims that some statements made in the Bishops decree are deliberately false, saying: *a knowledgeable observer of CFFC would know that we are unalterably opposed to population control. We believe that individuals and couples, not the state, have the fundamental human right to decide on when and whether to have children. We are on record as opposed to any coercive policies to limit the number of children a couple decides to have as well as to deny them access to a wide range of contraceptive methods that enable them to prevent pregnancy when they so

desire.*(4)

Unalterably opposed to population control …? Come now, Ms. Kissling! It is universally known and accepted that China’s draconian population control program consists of forced abortion, forced contraception and forced sterilization. In China, Catholics are widely persecuted, and women are subject to coercion in violation of free reproductive choice.

James Martin-Schramm, Luther College: Mr. Martin-Schramm believes that the use of incentives to lower birthrates is morally justifiable. The use of incentives, he states, like cash or consumer goods to promote family planning may be morally justifiable, but only if the incentive offers a significant gain in social or economic welfare and only if the recipient believes he or she benefits in a substantial way.(5) Such bribes are illegal under U.S. law.

It is remarkable that Mr. Martin-Schramm supports this form of coercion, and at the same time claims to cast an objective glance on UNFPA operations in China, because this is one of the kinds of coercion in China that UNFPA supports. Women who submit to forced abortions in UNFPA programs in China are entitled to receive state benefits such as health care, jobs and school for their children. China’s justification for this coercion is that, in the words of Martin-Schramm, the incentive offers a significant gain in social or economic welfare. He also supports abortion as a method of family planning, and claims that God desires lower birth rates.

Carlton W. Veazey, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Mr. Veazey supports partial-birth abortion. Partial-birth abortion and infanticide occur in regions in China where UNFPA claims that reform is taking

place.(6)

Meg Riley, Director of Advocacy, Unitarian Universalist Association: Ms. Riley claims to be a minister. She claims to be pro-choice. On the 30th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, she led a congregation in the following

prayer: This year, anti-antiabortion advocates are particularly excited about the shift in power on Capital Hill and are turning out in greater numbers than we have seen before. It’s important for pro-choice people of faith to understand how thoroughly the religious voice has been co-opted to be equated with opposition to abortion.(7) It is unfortunate that Ms. Riley fails to realize that women in China have no choice.

Nancy Kipnis, National Vice-President of the National Council for Jewish

Women: Ms. Kipnis is the director of the Benchmark campaign to oppose judicial nominees who are anti-abortion.(8)

Ronald M. Green, PhD., Department of Religion, Dartmouth: Dr. Green supports human cloning and destructive experimentation on human embryos. He is an advisory board member of Advanced Cell Technologies, one of the lead groups lobbying for therapeutic cloning advisory board member.(9) As PRI has recently reported, China’s one-child policy is directly linked with its burgeoning biotech industry which relies on coercive experimentation.

Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives preserved Kemp-Kasten, in opposition to pro-UNFPA Senate appropriations. As resolution of this issue approaches the House-Senate conference committee, off sails this junket to China.

When this group returns, what will it try to tell the world about UNFPA’s program in China?

Consider the source.

The findings of this so-called investigation are a foregone conclusion. They should be ignored.