U.S. Denies $25 Million to U.N. Fund Over China Family Planning

The Agency for International Development said Wednesday it will withhold its $25-million contribution from the U.N. Fund for Population Activities because China has a coercive family planning program that encourages abortion.

The decision to cut off the U.S. contribution to the U.N. organization, which supports family planning programs in China and 133 other developing countries, was confirmed by a top AID official.

The U.S. contribution represents about 20% of the U.N. fund’s budget.

The Population Crisis Committee, a private group that supports family planning activities, made public AID’s decision and called it an “unmitigated disaster.”

The AID official, speaking only on condition he remain anonymous, said the decision to withhold the money came after U.S. officials determined that “there was coercion” in China’s family planning program, even though Chinese officials deny it.

Despite the cutoff, the official said, AID “strongly supports voluntary family planning,” and has earmarked $239 million for bilateral population programs this fiscal year.

Questions about U.S. funding for the agency were raised last fall after attacks on the family planning program in China.

Opponents charged that the Chinese program, designed to encourage each family to have only one child, had engaged in coercion, and encouraged an increase in abortions and involuntary sterilizations.

Last October, AID Administrator M. Peter McPherson reported that the U.N. fund would be eligible for U.S. support under certain conditions, aimed at preventing coercion by changing the assistance the U.N. fund gives to China.

The AID official who confirmed the cutoff of the contribution said U.S. officials were “unable to determine there has been a significant change in the way the Chinese program” operates.

Termed U.S. Interference

Chinese officials have denounced U.S. moves to cut funding as interference in China’s internal affairs.

AID’s decision was hailed by Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), who has been among the chief congressional opponents of the program, and by the National Right to Life Committee.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said, “We commend Mr. McPherson. We think most Americans can think of better things to do with their tax dollars.”

But Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer (D-Pa.) said less than 1% of China’s family planning budget comes from the United Nations. The major effect, he contended, will be to deny family planning assistance to millions of women in the scores of other nations served by U.N. programs.

“I think they’re doing terrible damage,” Kostmayer said. He said the action will “wind up causing more abortions, because poor women in the Third World will lack family planning” information and assistance.

Sharon L. Camp, vice president of the Population Crisis Committee, said, “U.S. withdrawal from UNFPA is an unmitigated disaster. It says to the world that we are willing to dismantle our family planning programs abroad to keep happy a small, but noisy, anti-family planning constituency at home.”