US Congress holds to anti-abortion stand
The United Nations lost out on what may have been both its best and last chance — at least for a while of getting $200 million of the almost $1 billion that the United States owes in back dues to the international body.
Although sources in the Administration and Congress had been reporting that a deal to repay the dues was close, abortion provided the chief sticking point which caused a tentative agreement to collapse in late October.
Conservative and pro-life legislators in the Congress held firm in their demand that, as a condition of the payment, so-called “family planning” organizations overseas agree not to use US government funds to lobby their governments to overturn existing laws restricting or banning abortion.
According to sources quoted in the New York Times, White House officials might have been willing to accept the condition but population control and feminist groups “pressured” the Administration to turn it down — even though that meant losing the funding. This refusal is reminiscent of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s (IPPF) refusal to accept US funds in 1986, when similar restrictions were placed upon them.
Other UN Funding also blocked
In a related move, House negotiators stripped $20 million allocated to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) from the fiscal year 1999 budget because of the organization’s continued involvement in China, where forced abortion and sterilization have long marked the government’s one child policy.
Although the $20 million provides only seven percent of the UNFPA’s total annual expenditure The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (CFHRI), a UN monitoring organization, called the loss “significant.” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney [D-NY], using invented figures from UNFPA, claimed the cut would bring about 22,000 infant deaths, 234,000 unwanted births, 500,000 unwanted pregnancies and 200,000 abortions. As is often the ease, no explanation of how UNFPA arrived at these figures was forthcoming. Even with the out to UNFPA, the United States still plans to spend $385 million in the coming fiscal year to control the fertility of people around the world.
