EQUAL TIME: Population curbs earn U.S. disfavor

Chris Smith
October 19, 2005
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/auto/epaper/editions/wednesday/opinion_34551f69820e42b000f7.html
Once again, the United Nations Population Fund failed to meet the basic fundamental human rights conditions necessary to receive funding from the United States. The decision by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to withhold funding is commendable and reiterates the strong commitment by the United States to protect and defend persecuted women and children. 
For years, UNFPA has been guilty of shamelessly supporting and whitewashing crimes against humanity by putting a U.N. seal of approval on a program based on forced abortion and coercive population control.
Just this summer, the State Department revealed that in the areas where UNFPA operates, official regulations mandate forced abortion and crushing fines for those who do not obey its enforcers.
In China's Hunan Province, for example, the law reads, Pregnancies that do not comply with the legal requirements for childbirth shall be terminated in a timely manner. For pregnancies that are not so terminated, the township People's Government or neighborhood committee shall order termination within a limited period
. . . for those who give birth to an additional child in violation of the law, a fine equal to twice the couple's total income for the prior year shall be levied. The birth of each subsequent child shall triple the fee amount.
It is clear that while UNFPA's presence does nothing to end the persecution of women, it certainly provides cover for the Chinese government to continue to perform these human rights violations. The United States cannot and should not take part in subsidizing these horrors.
By withholding funding for UNFPA, our president and our country stand with the oppressed by refusing to cooperate with their oppressor, sending a strong message that we will not fund the brutal and oppressive lapdogs of the Chinese. Instead, money withheld from UNFPA will be redirected to groups that work to expand global human rights.
The international community should be appalled that UNFPA spends more time, energy and dollars demonizing the United States for providing funds to other organizations than it does in criticizing the murderous Chinese population control program.
Ironically, if UNFPA would lobby the Chinese government to prohibit forced abortion as aggressively as they lobby the United States to overturn the law against coercion, there would be far less suffering in China today.
The 21st century is long past the time for UNFPA to sever its ties with China's one-child-per-couple family planning program that relies on forced abortion, involuntary sterilization and heavy economic penalties for women to achieve its brutal goals. Other countries need to hold UNFPA and the Chinese population control program accountable at The Hague for crimes against humanity.