Linkmeister

Women lose again

Up is down and down is up: Abortion accusations block financing for yet another AIDS group, despite this admission: "State Department officials acknowledge that they have no evidence to suggest that Marie Stopes is involved in forced abortions or involuntary sterilization..." Doesn't matter. Stopes works with the UN Population Fund, and that organization has been deemed evil because it works with the Chinese government; its funding was cut earlier this year. Guilt by association is ok, huh?

Here's the real hypocrisy, though:

The official praised the AIDS program that will no longer receive State Department funds as "good work" and "very useful." The project is run by a consortium of seven groups, including Marie Stopes, and offers AIDS counseling and supports health care services for thousands of people in several countries including Angola, Congo, Rwanda and Eritrea.

The State Department gave $1 million to cover the first year of the project and offered to finance the six other relief organizations involved in the program for a second year if they agreed to end their partnership with Marie Stopes (My emphasis).

The groups, known collectively as the Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium, declined the government's offer, saying they would not divide the organization because of "baseless allegations." The groups include the International Rescue Committee, CARE, the American Refugee Committee, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, John Snow International and Columbia University's department of population and family health.

"We were disappointed that for reasons of solidarity with Marie Stopes that they should refuse our money," said the State Department official. "We had hoped they would show more humanitarian statesmanship than that."

So submitting to State Department blackmail would have been "statesmanship." These guys spin more than my Whirlpool dryer.

Posted by Linkmeister at August 28, 2003 09:45 AM