Subject: Pro-Life Lawmakers Hold Up UNFPA Funding
Source: Focus on the Family, Life Advocacy Briefing; November 19, 2001

Pro-Life Lawmakers Hold Up UNFPA Funding

Washington, DC -- The push by abortion advocates in the U.S. Senate to
give more money to efforts that reduce the world's population has stalled,
thanks to the bold stand of a few pro-life congressmen.

It looked like the conference committee negotiating on the Foreign
Operations appropriations bill was about to increase federal funding for
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) from $25 million last fiscal
year to $37.5 million in fiscal year 2002 -- with much of the money
earmarked for population control.

But all that has changed.

"Americans do not want their tax dollars to go to organizations that
cooperate with and praise China's one-child abortion policy," said Connie
Mackey, vice president of government relations for the Family Research
Council. "And we have nothing but praise ... for Congressman Chris Smith
(R-NJ) and Mike Pence (R-IN) and other members of Congress who went to the
floor to try to fight this battle on our behalf."

"Twenty-five million dollars is $25 million too much, but it's certainly
not $34 million or $39 million or some other number," Smith said. "They
certainly shouldn't be getting an increase when they are flaunting
coercion while pretending to embrace volunteerism."

He said the population fund has "aided and abetted" communist China's
policies, in which the central authorities have set quotas for population
growth for certain regions. In some cases local authorities, in order to
meet their quotas, have forced population control, including abortion

Pro-life groups have long opposed taxpayer funding for the UNFPA, in large
part because of its partnership with Chinese government officials in
carrying out the country's policy allowing only one child per family.
Officials often enforce the policy through forced sterilization and
abortion.

However, the battle in Congress is not over.

Senate abortion advocates on the conference committee strongly support
increased funding for the UNFPA, and several in the House aren't
supportive of the strong stance taken by Smith and Pence along with
pro-life Congressman Dave Weldon (R-FL), who is a medical doctor.
Nevertheless, Smith has won the support of House leaders, who are willing
to break off negotiations if Senate negotiators won't give in, according
to CQ Monitor, which covers developments on Capitol Hill.

Smith, Weldon and Pence, protested the allocation for United Nations
Population Fund, period, during last week's meeting of the House
Republican Conference.

The three cited the recent hearing by the House Committee on International
Relations, where UNFPA's continued complicity with Red China's forced
abortion and involuntary sterilization pogrom was exposed, as well as
UNFPA's burgeoning scheme to distribute back-alley, do-it-yourself
abortion kits to Afghan refugees.

Their pleas were of such passion that House Republicans concluded the
UNFPA funding item must be reconsidered before the Foreign Operations bill
can be finalized.

Wendy Wright, spokesman for Concerned Women for America, said pro-abortion
senators are blind to what the U.N. does with taxpayer money.

"We know United Nations Population Fund is using our tax dollars for
coercive abortion and sterilization programs in China, and among refugees
it was done in Kosovo and apparently will be done among the Afghan
refugees in Pakistan now," Wright said.

She added that Congress needs to stop throwing money at the U.N. just
because they've done it in the past. Mackey contends that the United
States shouldn't be spending tax dollars on abortion and sterilization
programs, when the money could be better spent on the war effort and
aiding Afghan children.

ACTION: Contact your House representative and senators and urge them not
to increase funding for the UNFPA from the level for fiscal year 2001.
Tell them you do not want your tax dollars going to the organization
because it supports forced sterilization and forced abortion programs,
like those used in China. Call the Capitol switchboard at