Cut U.S. Funding to UN’s Population Fund

By Richard Land
Oct 3, 2011

The SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is on the record with strong support for H.R. 2059, legislation to prohibit funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

This bill would ensure that taxpayers are no longer forced to fund this agency, which known for its involvement with China’s one-child policy and forced sterilization. I have personally encouraged Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, to support this bill as it stands, without any weakening amendments during the committee markup scheduled for Wednesday, October 5.

Since 1985, a policy known as the Kemp-Kasten Amendment has been included in every foreign aid appropriations bill, specifying that funds may not be “made available to any organization or program which, as determined by the President of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” Citing Kemp-Kasten, previous presidential administrations withheld U.S. funding to the UNFPA for Fiscal Years 1986-1993, 1999, and 2002-2008, due to the agency’s involvement with China’s coercive population control program. the rest

Regrettably, the Obama administration restarted U.S. contributions to the UNFPA in 2009, appropriating $145 million to the agency during Fiscal Years 2009-11, even as the UNFPA continues to support China’s coercive family planning policy. Such funding must not continue.