POPULATION-US: Breakthrough on UNFPA Funding

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 20 1999 (IPS) - The US House of Representatives, in a major breakthrough for family-planning advocates, voted Tuesday to provide 25 million dollars to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) next year.

The 221-198 vote marked the first major test of anti-abortion forces in the House, who last year successfully blocked US contributions to UNFPA and also held up about one billion dollars in US arrears to the United Nations itself.

It also was the first vote lost by anti-abortion forces on a overseas population-related aid measure since the 1994 landslide elections which gave Republicans a majority in the lower House.

“This was a major vote,” said one Republican aide whose boss voted with the anti-abortion forces against funding UNFPA. “This could mean that the (Bill Clinton) administration will now get its (UN) arrears.”

If anti-abortion forces were downcast, backers of overseas family-planning programmes were jubilant.

“We are thrilled that this first international family-planning vote of the year attracted the support of members from both sides of the aisle. They included several members who oppose abortion, but who understand UNFPA’s critical role in helping reduce the need for abortion,” said Amy Coen, president of Population Action International (PAI), a lobby and research group here.

UNFPA’s executive director, Nafis Sadik, who coincidentally was in Washington Tuesday to address a Congressional conference on follow-up to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, also welcomed the result.

“I can’t contain my happiness (and) elation at the vote,” she told the conference, which was convened by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). She accused the anti-abortion forces who fought against UNFPA funding of “gross misrepresentations of facts and motives.”

Tuesday’s vote came as the House considered the fiscal year 2000 State Department authorisation bill, a package that includes voluntary US contributions to various UN agencies, including UNFPA.

The Senate, where anti-abortion forces are weaker, has already approved 25 million dollars for UNFPA for next year, making it unlikely that the appropriation can be derailed.

The vote also comes against a wider backdrop of parliamentary manoeuvring for other foreign-aid-related bills which are currently moving through both houses of Congress.

Of special interest is the 2000 foreign-aid appropriations bill, the Senate version of which includes almost one billion dollars out of the approximately 1.6 billion dollars Washington owes the United Nations in back dues.

Since 1997, House anti-abortion forces, led by Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey, have successfully made payment of those arrears conditional on a ban on any US aid to overseas population agencies which urge their own governments to ease their anti- abortion laws.

Pressed by women’s and population groups here, Clinton has vowed to veto any legislation containing such a ban.

The result has been a two-year impasse during which Washington has fallen so deeply behind in its obligations to the United Nations that it is likely to lose its seat in the General Assembly next year if a major portion of the arrears are not paid before then.

The significance of Tuesday’s vote, therefore, could go far beyond next year’s funding of UNFPA, according to legislative analysts here. By losing the critical UNFPA vote, the predominantly Republican anti-abortion forces may have shown unexpected weakness just as the leadership in both houses prepare to decide whether to include the arrears in the 2000 foreign-aid bill.

“This should send a message on arrears to the (Republican) leadership in the House,” said Craig Lasher, a senior PAI lobbyist. “Like us, I’m sure they were surprised by the margin of the vote.”

The vote came after the House began its second week considering the State Department bill. As the UNFPA appropriation already was included in the bill, Smith introduced an amendment Monday similar to the one he used to block UNFPA funding last year.

It eliminated all UNFPA funding unless the agency ceases all its operations in China due to Beijing’s alleged use of forced abortion and sterilisation to enforce its population policies.

“For 20 years,” he charged, “the UNFPA has participated with the perpetrators of the most egregious systematic abuse of women in history. …The Chinese government, as they have been doing for the last 20 years, will run this programme and again, the UNFPA will give it more cover…”

In a key parliamentary manoeuvre, pro-UNFPA forces, led by another Republican, California Rep. Tom Campbell, introduced their own amendment to Smith’s amendment, effectively superceding it.

The Campbell amendment would authorise the 25-million dollar contribution but require that it be kept by UNFPA in a separate account that would be reduced dollar-for-dollar by the amount UNFPA spends in China – roughly five million dollars.

Campbell and a bipartisan group of fellow-lawmakers argued that the Smith amendment was misguided. “Who suffers from the Smith amendment?” asked California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who ordinarily is allied with Smith on China policy and human rights.

“The World Health Organisation estimates that nearly 600,000 women die each year of pregnancy and childbirth-related causes,” Polosi said.

The UNFPA funds programme to reduce this mortality and related health problems, she went on, adding “I do not understand why the poorest women on this planet, year in and year out, must be held hostage to the conservative politics of the Republican Party.”

The House then approved Campbell’s amendment, rendering the Smith amendment moot.

In her remarks shortly after the vote, Sadik tried to “dipsel the myths (about UNFPA’s work in China) once and for all.” She noted that earlier this year, the agency and Beijing signed an agreement covering the 32 counties in which UNFPA works in China “to put into practice a human-rights approach …to stabilising population.”

In all these counties, she said, all targets and quotas for population control have already been abolished. “UNFPA has really never tolerated coercion anywhere,” she said.