Defund the UN Population Fund

There’s never been a better opportunity to defund a department of the United Nations than right now. Fresh out of the House Foreign Relations Committee is H.R. 2059, a remarkably short bill that would prohibit funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The proposal has 83 cosponsors and quite a lot of momentum, and could save the American taxpayers $400 million in one decade, and probably many babies’ lives. In addition, it would bring the White House’s current policy back in line with American law that prohibits funding for any agency that supports or participates in programs of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. (Think China.)

The propaganda from the UNFPA (known as the United Nations Fund for Population Activities from 1969 to 1987) indicates that its programs do nothing more than “reduce poverty and ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.” And how does the UNFPA accomplish such lofty-sounding goals? By promoting “family planning,” access to abortions, and instituting sex-ed programs, especially for youth.

Although the UNFPA denies promoting or supporting abortion on its website, under the umbrella of “reproductive health” the international organization provides legitimacy for accessing abortion as a human right. As recently as July, the youth program of UNFPA, Y-PEER, released a statement calling for the realization of global youths’ sexual and reproductive health and rights. The statement even went so far as to encourage young people to “experience and celebrate their sexuality,” and emphasized the “right to choose” along with universal access to safe abortion and comprehensive sexuality education for those as young as ten years.

So, instead of promoting policies that would delay marriage and childbearing for the poverty-stricken of many countries, the UNFPA encourages promiscuity. Instead of abstinence training, a sexual revolution is advanced. And, instead of telling teens the truth about free sex, they hype the glories of condom use that afford little or no protection from sexually transmitted diseases rampant in many third world countries. Shockingly, the UN’s answer to gender discrimination and sex selection brought about by the one-child policy is “safe” abortions.

UNFPA was caught in 2001 praising China’s brutally enforced one-child policy, but denies that its programs in China supported coercive abortions. However, in 2002, the U.S. State Department, while concluding that UNFPA didn’t “knowingly” support or participate in forced abortions or sterilization, found that UNFPA had indeed provided computers and data-processing equipment that facilitated the implementation of China’s coercive policy, and even shared office space. This knowledge prompted then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to call for an end of U.S. funding for UNFPA. Furthermore John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State concurred in 2008 saying, “all UNFPA programming related to contraception and reproductive health incorporates, and defers to Chinese law and regulation.”

In 2005 and in 2006, UNFPA and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) jointly advanced a framework that included “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” including “safe abortion.” In 2007, the goal was to introduce MVA techniques -- vacuum aspiration for early term abortions -- across the African continent. The IPPF at that time spent $100,000 on a special session for African health ministers to implement the UNFPA/IPPF plan of action.

In 2010, UNFPA’s contribution to IPPF was $1.6 million. UN Women contributed over $330,000. UNAIDS gave IPPF over $1 million. And the World Bank, WHO, and UNAIDS collectively donated $400,000 to IPPF.

Although House appropriators included a UNFPA funding ban in their version of the fiscal 2012 State Department spending bill, their Senate counterparts included $40 million for the UNFPA in their version, while President Obama has requested $47.5 million.

The moral of this story is that eventually, money given to UNFPA ends up in the pockets of those whose goal it is to increase abortions and destroy the morality and values of the people in many geographic locations; there’s little evidence that poverty is eliminated, or that women and children are any healthier.

Contact your congressmen now and insist they vote to defund UNFPA by passing H.R. 2059. Anything less would not be representational of the wishes of the American people who reject abortion and the use of their hard-earned tax dollars to pay for it.

Thanks,

Your friends at The John Birch Society