WASHINGTON - President Bush is poised to reject the advice
of his own fact-finding team and cut off millions of dollars to a United
Nations family planning program that abortion opponents contend supports
forced abortions in China.
An independent team that the administration sent to China
in May concluded the allegations are untrue and recommended that Bush release
$34 million to the U.N. Population Fund, said two officials familiar with
the issue.
The three-person team, which spent two weeks traveling
throughout China, wrote in a report to the State Department that the U.N.
program did not knowingly support coercive abortions, said the officials,
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In fact, one of the officials said, the report concluded
that the U.N. program improved women's lives by helping them prevent unwanted
pregnancies through education and birth control and, therefore, reducing
the number of abortions under China's restrictive family planning policy.
The administration has refused to release the report,
even to congressional Republicans working on the issue. White House spokesman
Scott McClellan said Friday that a final decision had not been made and
that the State Department would announce soon what Bush's policy would
be.
The two officials and others, however, said the White
House will instruct State Department employees to cut the funding, which
Congress - and Bush - approved earlier this year.
State Department officials accepted the fact-finders'
conclusion that the U.N. program did not support coerced abortions, but,
one senior administration official said, "the White House has decided to
interpret it differently."
Officials of the U.N. program, which does not perform
abortions, strongly denied allegations that they support coercion in China's
enforcement of birth limits. They said the goal of their program was to
reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
The administration's decision on funding for the U.N.
program threatens to set off a firestorm in Congress, where a number of
Democrats and Republicans have criticized the president's failure to release
money that they appropriated.
"I am outraged by the possibility that, despite a clean
report from the China investigation team, the administration could still
consider cutting off funding," said Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the ranking
Democrat on House subcommittee that oversees foreign operations. "If this
is true, it is clear that petty politics, rather than prudent policy, is
the main consideration here."
By eliminating money to the international family planning
program, Bush, who opposes abortion rights, would be throwing a bone to
his conservative political base. But he also would risk angering women,
particularly moderates, whom the administration has been trying to woo.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D.-N.Y., said that if Bush cuts
funding, "any appearance that this administration cares about women around
the world is out the door."
Although the administration would not permit interviews
with officials involved in the current funding decision, McClellan acknowledged
that one key player is domestic policy adviser Jay Lefkowitz. He declined
to explain why an official charged with setting policy within the United
States would be involved in a decision about a program that operates abroad.
Asked whether domestic politics are playing a role in
Bush's decision, McClellan said: "The president makes decisions based on
what he believes is right."
The family planning debate is one issue delaying passage
of a $30 billion supplemental appropriations bill, which includes money
to fight terrorism, said John Scofield, spokesman for the Republican-run
House Appropriations Committee. Scofield said that Bush's budget director,
Mitch Daniels, rejected a request by Committee chair Bill Young, R.-Fla.,
that he release the China report.
Bush initially proposed giving $25 million to the U.N.
program, which goes by its former acronym, UNFPA, and works in 142 countries.
Congress increased that to $34 million, none of which could be used in
China.
But the bill that Bush signed in January left it to his
discretion whether to release the money, which represents nearly 13 percent
of the program's $266 million budget.
The president withheld the money after an anti-abortion
group, the Population Research Institute, testified before Congress that
the U.N. program supported forced abortions. Some congressional Republicans,
led by Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, argued that the program violated
the Kemp-Kasten amendment, a 1984 provision that prohibits foreign operations
money from going to any organization that "supports or participates in
the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."
The administration dispatched to China William Brown,
a former ambassador to
Thailand and Israel; Bonnie Glick, a long-time foreign
service officer; and Theodore Tong, an associate dean of pharmacy at the
University of Arizona. They were accompanied by State Department officials
from Washington and Beijing.
The fact-finding team reached a conclusion similar to
that of a British team that went to China to investigate the same allegations
one month earlier. Now, abortion opponents are questioning whether the
U.S. group had the freedom to truly examine the situation in China.
In a letter to Bush last month, the Population Research
Institute and more than 140 other domestic and international groups said
they had "grave concerns" about the investigation. "What this official
team found going over there with fanfare and government officials all around,
we don't know," said Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee.
The U.N. Population Fund, Johnson said, has been a "watchdog
and a cheerleader" for China's restrictive policies.
But Joan Kaufman, an expert on China's reproductive health
issues at Harvard University, said the U.N. organization had helped China
move away from coercion in family planning.
"You do find excessive pressure on couples, but things
are improving enormously," Kaufman said. A new population law that will
take effect in September explicitly states that coercion is criminal and
will be prosecuted, she said.
China generally limits urban families to one child, and
allows rural couples in most places to have two children.
Chinese family planning officials in Beijing have said
the government does not condone coerced abortion. Nevertheless, local officials
are responsible for making sure their areas do not exceed birth quotas,
and some have used forced abortions and other coercive measures.
"Are there problems in China?" asked Sarah Craven, chief
of the U.N. program's Washington office. "Absolutely. And that's why we're
there . . .
We're about saving women's lives and saving babies lives
and making sure every baby is wanted."
Craven estimated the $34 million would prevent 2 million
unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 deaths of women
during pregnancy and childbirth, 60,000 maternal illnesses and 77,000 deaths
of infants and children.
Sterling Scruggs, another UNFPA official, said the program's
main goal in China is to reduce forced abortions by providing other family
planning options, such as contraception. Around the world, he said, the
program works to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies,
and to provide health care to mothers and babies.
The Bush administration has supported the program in the
past. Last year, it released $25 million to the fund, then gave it another
$600,000 to work with women in Afghanistan as part of the war on terrorism.
The administration also works on health issues with China.
Last month Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced
a $14.8 million, five-year grant to help China fight AIDS. The money is
not subject to the Kemp-Kasten provision because it is not part of a foreign
operations budget.
Bush has inserted himself into the international family
planning debate before. Last year, on his first workday as president, which
also was the 28th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision to legalize
abortion, he reinstated a Reagan-era ban on federal money for organizations
that promote abortions overseas.