Representative Connie Morella (R-Md.) has joined forces with avid population—controller Representative Anthony Beilenson (D-Calif.) to sponsor a bill which would dramatically increase U.S. population control funding in developing countries.
The bill would amend the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; it would increase available population funds while, at the same time, bury the full intent of the legislation in a pottage of population stabilization, family health, self-determination for women and environmental protection.
Representatives Morella and Beilenson are co-chairs of the Congressional Coalition on Population and Development. Beilenson is also a member of the U.N. Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development.
The newly-introduced legislation calls for a U.S. 1994 fiscal year population budget of $725 million (up from the current $352 million). U.S. funding under the bill would grow to $800 million in 1995 as it moves toward a contribution of $1.4 billion in the year 2000 within an overall $11 billion “budget for total worldwide expenditures” from all international sources.
An additional $851 million is requested for development and economic assistance which includes a “Child Survival Fund” and a “Safe Motherhood Initiative.” “AIDS prevention and control” would receive an additional $100 million. The funds control” would receive an additional $100 million. The funds and targets would be monitored through an annual presidential report to the Congress.
Population Action International (formerly the Population Crisis Committee) expressed dissatisfaction with the bill because “’it does not allow us to fund programs that deal with abortion .… The bill doesn’t say that it won’t [fund abortions]. It just doesn’t say that it will. It excludes it by not mentioning it’” (Family Planning World, vol. 3, no. 4, July/Aug. 1993, 6).
Perhaps the bill does not call for direct funding of abortion surgeries in Third World nations because it has already taken care of that through the funding of the Safe Motherhood Initiative. That Initiative has forged a political/economic partnership which is designed as a tool to break down restrictive abortion laws in all Third World countries. The members of the partnership are the World bank, U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), U.S. Agency for International Development funded Population Council, and International Planned Parenthood Federation. Within the partnership, economic compulsion and guaranteed funds to carry out the agenda forcefully are to be provided by the World Bank (see “World Bank Safe Motherhood Initiative” PRI Review, vol. 2, no.3, May/June, l-3).
