Of course, women's health low priority for this gov't..again
Of course since this would not benefit any of baby bush's greedy corp. donors it doesn't get passed, even though women and babies all over the World will die because of it. make sure you e-mail your reps to let them know that women, all over the World, have a right to deliver a baby with clean tools and proper medications and safe birth control! This is not about abortion either. It is about the fact that these women usually cannot stand up for themselves.
House Blocks Family Planning Funds
China's One-Child Policy Is Focus of Members' Concerns
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A02
A narrow majority of House members voted yesterday to block $50 million in international family planning funds, contending that the program bolsters China's coercive population control policy.
The 216 to 211 vote was a setback for the United Nations Population Fund, known as UNFPA, which promotes contraception and safe birthing and child care practices in more than 150 countries. While the program generally has had bipartisan congressional support, senior Bush administration officials and some GOP lawmakers say it violates U.S. law by supporting China's 'one child' policy, which critics say sometimes results in forced abortions.
UNFPA officials say they do not promote abortion, and a three-member investigative team that President Bush dispatched to China last year found 'no evidence' the program endorsed or promoted coerced abortions and involuntary sterilizations. But that has failed to satisfy the administration, which diverted $34 million from the program last year, or several congressional Republicans.
Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) said it would be an 'unconscionable act' to give money to a family planning agency that operates in China. 'We need to stand with the oppressed, not with the oppressor,' said Smith, who offered the amendment striking the money from a State Department authorization bill.
Several lawmakers said the program's critics were being shortsighted, since UNFPA provides millions of dollars to help poor women in developing countries. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), who advocated keeping the $50 million in the legislation, said his view of family planning changed after he spoke with a birthing assistant in Malawi. The woman asked for kerosene so she could see during her patients' labor, and clean razor blades so she could cut the umbilical cords.
'That had a profound impact on me,' Crowley said in an interview. 'It's not about abortion.. . . . It's more than about providing contraception. It's about child survival and maternal survival.'
The vote makes it unlikely that UNFPA will receive any federal money in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Bush has not asked to fund it in his 2004 budget, instead diverting money to a maternal and child health project run by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
House Blocks Family Planning Funds
China's One-Child Policy Is Focus of Members' Concerns
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A02
A narrow majority of House members voted yesterday to block $50 million in international family planning funds, contending that the program bolsters China's coercive population control policy.
The 216 to 211 vote was a setback for the United Nations Population Fund, known as UNFPA, which promotes contraception and safe birthing and child care practices in more than 150 countries. While the program generally has had bipartisan congressional support, senior Bush administration officials and some GOP lawmakers say it violates U.S. law by supporting China's 'one child' policy, which critics say sometimes results in forced abortions.
UNFPA officials say they do not promote abortion, and a three-member investigative team that President Bush dispatched to China last year found 'no evidence' the program endorsed or promoted coerced abortions and involuntary sterilizations. But that has failed to satisfy the administration, which diverted $34 million from the program last year, or several congressional Republicans.
Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) said it would be an 'unconscionable act' to give money to a family planning agency that operates in China. 'We need to stand with the oppressed, not with the oppressor,' said Smith, who offered the amendment striking the money from a State Department authorization bill.
Several lawmakers said the program's critics were being shortsighted, since UNFPA provides millions of dollars to help poor women in developing countries. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), who advocated keeping the $50 million in the legislation, said his view of family planning changed after he spoke with a birthing assistant in Malawi. The woman asked for kerosene so she could see during her patients' labor, and clean razor blades so she could cut the umbilical cords.
'That had a profound impact on me,' Crowley said in an interview. 'It's not about abortion.. . . . It's more than about providing contraception. It's about child survival and maternal survival.'
The vote makes it unlikely that UNFPA will receive any federal money in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Bush has not asked to fund it in his 2004 budget, instead diverting money to a maternal and child health project run by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
