by Claire Chretien
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| President Trump |
April 4, 2017 (LifeSiteNews)
– The Trump administration has withdrawn U.S. funding from the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) because of its participation in China's forced abortion
regime.
"This determination was made
based on the fact that China's family planning policies still involve the use
of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilisation, and UNFPA partners on
family planning activities with the Chinese government agency responsible for
these coercive policies," according to the state department.
"We want to thank the Trump
administration," Stephen Phelan, Director of Mission Communications for
Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews. "This is wonderful news both
for the people in China who are most vulnerable – the women and babies who are
most vulnerable to what the Chinese government has been doing these last
several decades."
The U.S. defunding UNFPA
"sends a signal to the world that the U.S. is taking this seriously
again," said Phelan. "It’s going to be paying very close attention to
what the United Nations is doing. Anyone who truly respects rights, women's
freedom, and women's reproductive health should celebrate this decision."
"We are thrilled that the
U.S. is no longer funding forced abortion and involuntary sterilization in
China," said Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women's Rights Without
Frontiers. "The blood of Chinese women and babies will no longer be on our
hands...I have consistently advocated for the defunding of UNFPA over the
years, most recently just a couple of weeks ago at the United Nations
Commission on the Status of Women. Last month, I also briefed
the State Department on continuing coercion, including forced abortion, under
China’s Two-Child Policy."
"My message at the UNCSW was
that The United States Secretary of State should investigate and evaluate
UNFPA’s activities in China, and the President should de-fund them under the
Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which ‘prohibits funding for any organization or
program that, as determined by the President, supports or participates in the
management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary
sterilization," Littlejohn continued.
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"I'm always reminded when I attend
events at the UN that the UN and WHO
position is unambiguously pro-abortion..."
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Phelan noted that at one point,
UNFPA even shared office space with the "same people who perpetrated"
and carried out China's coercive one-child policy.
According to a Washington
Times report, UNFPA’s former head, Dr. Nafis
Sadik, was awarded the Population Prize Award by the Chinese State Family
Planning Commission in 2002.
In her acceptance speech in
Beijing, Sadik praised China’s population control program. “Looking back, I
feel a great sense of pride for the Chinese Government and people for their
support to UNFPA and to me, personally, I also feel proud that UNFPA made the
wise decision to resist external pressures and continued its fruitful
cooperation with China,” she said.
"Under China’s One (now Two)
Child Policy, women have been forcibly aborted up to the ninth month of
pregnancy," said Littlejohn. "Some of these forced abortions have
been so violent that the women themselves have died, along with their full term
babies. There have been brutal forced sterilizations as well, butchering women
and leaving them disabled. Where was the outcry from the UNFPA? In my opinion,
silence in the face of such atrocities is complicity... The UNFPA’s
silence in the face of decades of forced abortion has been a sword in the wombs
of millions of women and babies of China."
"The UN Population Fund does
not deserve one dime of U.S. taxpayers' money because it’s involved in coercive
family planning programs in a number of countries around the world," Steve
Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute, told LifeSiteNews. He
said China's coercive family planning program is the most well-known, but the
UNFPA collaborates with similar ones in Vietnam and North Korea.
"In North Korea, the UN
Population Fund has offices and is encouraging these brutal, dictatorial
regimes to drive down their birth-rate by forced abortion and forced sterilization
policies," said Mosher.
"The evidence is clear,"
said Mosher, noting there are "agents of the United Nations Population
Fund who are paid by the United Nations Population Fund and are carrying out these
policies in different parts of China. This is why we were able to get the Bush
administration" to cut off UNFPA's funding in the early 2000s.
President Obama reversed that,
allowing the U.S. to return to funding UNFPA.
Now, $32.5 million, instead of
going to the UNFPA, will go to a US Agency for International Development
(USAID) account for "family planning and reproductive health."
The UNFPA "regrets the
decision by the United States to deny any future funding for its life-saving
work," the organization said in a press release.
"This decision is based on the erroneous claim that UNFPA 'supports, or
participates in the management of, a programme of coercive abortion or
involuntary sterilization' in China...We have always valued the United States
as a trusted partner and leader in helping to ensure that every pregnancy is
wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is
fulfilled."
Mosher also said that the UNFPA
has built IUD factories in China which created devices that "were then
used by the family planning police in a coercive fashion."
"Kudos to President Trump for
cutting off funding to this notorious population control organization, and for
doing it, as is his style, quickly," said Mosher. "It took a year to
convince the Bush administration" to cut UNFPA's funding.
"This is another pro-life
victory for which we can thank the new administration," concluded Mosher.
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