BUSH SIGNS FOREIGN AID MEASURE, ENCOURAGED TO ZERO-FUND UNFPAWASHINGTON, January 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) - Yesterday President George W. Bush signed a massive $15.4 billion foreign aid bill which contains a provision to allow the President to have the final word on funding for the notorious abortion-promoting United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). While the bill suggests funding for UNFPA at $34 million - an increase of $9 million over last year - the amount is a ceiling, leaving Bush the opportunity to zero-fund the organization.
The Population Research Institute (PRI), which recently presented to Congress the results of an investigation into UNFPA's complicity with China's coercive one-child policy, said of the legislation, "President Bush has been handed the perfect opportunity to oppose forced abortion and forced sterilization in China." PRI President Steven W. Mosher said, "He should defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its support of these and other human rights abuses in China." In September, PRI obtained first-hand evidence from victims of forced abortion and forced sterilization in a UNFPA county program in China. In an attempt to secure funding, UNFPA denied that such abuses take place. But videotaped evidence of abuses in a UNFPA county program in China has been delivered by PRI to the White House.
New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith commented on the passage of the measure saying, "It needs to be fully understood that the ball is in the president's court now, our hope is that the president will look at the sordid complicity of the UNFPA with the Chinese population-control police."
With the annual U.S. March for Life only days away (Jan. 22) pro-lifers are hoping and praying President Bush will announce, perhaps even at the March, a denial of funds for the UNFPA due to the overwhelming evidence of its complicity with abortion. The Mexico City Policy, which is retained in the foreign aid bill, prohibits funding of groups involved in the international provision and promotion of abortion.