The administration of US President Donald Trump on Monday said it was cutting off US funding to the UN agency for reproductive health, accusing the agency of supporting population control programs in China that include coercive abortion.
By halting assistance to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Trump administration is following through on promises to let socially conservative policies that Trump embraced in his campaign determine the way the US government operates and conducts itself in the world.
Though focused on forced abortion — a concept opposed by liberals and conservatives alike — the move to invoke the “Kemp-Kasten amendment” was sure to be perceived as a gesture to anti-abortion advocates and other conservative interests.
The UN fund will lose US$32.5 million in funding from this year’s budget, the US Department of State said, with funds shifted to similar programs at the US Agency for International Development.
It was not immediately clear whether the UN fund would also lose out on tens of millions of additional dollars it has typically received from the US in “non-core” funds.
Under a three-decade-old law, the US is barred from funding organizations that aid or participate in forced abortion or involuntary sterilization. It is up to each administration to determine which organizations meet that condition.
The UN Population Fund has typically been cut off during Republican administrations and had its funding resumed when Democrats control the White House.
The US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was notified of the move by the Department of State in a letter received on Monday. The letter followed a formal designation by US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Tom Shannon that said the fund “supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
In a lengthy memorandum obtained by The Associated Press, the Department of State said the UN fund partners with China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, responsible for overseeing China’s “two-child policy” — a loosened version of the notorious “one-child policy” in place from 1979 to 2015.
It said the UN collaborates with the Chinese agency on family planning. Still, the memo acknowledged there was no evidence of UN support for forced abortions or sterilization in China.
The UN Population Fund said it regretted the US move, adding that it was “erroneous” to suggest it was complicit in China’s policies.
“UNFPA refutes this claim, as all of its work promotes the human rights of individuals and couples to make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination,” the agency said in a statement.
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