Administration Withholds UNFPA Funding for Seventh Consecutive Year
June 27, 2008
Yesterday, the Bush Administration notified Congress that it would once again block congressionally appropriated funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an agency of the United Nations which provides women’s healthcare and promotes women’s rights around the world. This is the seventh consecutive year that the Administration has chosen to withhold UNFPA funding, bringing the total amount withheld during the Bush Administration to $235 million.
The Administration has chosen to withhold UNFPA funding on the basis of the Kemp-Kasten amendment, a long-standing statutory provision which bars funding of any international organization that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or sterilization.” The Administration has determined that UNFPA programs in China violate the Kemp-Kasten amendment.
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) strongly disagreed with the President’s decision, stating, “It is inexcusable for the Administration to use bogus information to justify withholding assistance like family planning services, pre-natal health, and maternal and child mortality reduction from women around the world. The Administration’s decision to de-fund UNFPA is arbitrary and flies in the face of the State Department’s own investigators who found no evidence that UNFPA supported coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China.”
In a June 26th press release, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) joined Rep. Lowey in criticizing the Administration’s decision. Maloney remarked, “I am very much looking forward to next year, when a new administration will be able to reverse eight years of misguided Bush Administration policies that have imperiled the health of millions of women worldwide, and return the U.S. to its former position of leadership in funding family planning and reproductive health care worldwide.” According to Americans for UNFPA, the $235 million withheld since 2002 could have prevented roughly 294,000 maternal deaths and could have allowed 82 million women to delay their first or next pregnancy.
For more information about the work of UNFPA, please visit www.unfpa.org. For more information about the US relationship with UNFPA, visit www.americansforunfpa.org.
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