Linkmeister

Don't bother me with facts

The AIDS work of Marie Stopes (see below) as a member of the Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium has now been observed by Nick Kristof of the NYT. His opinion is that it's doing work the Bush Administration would admire, if it bothered to look.

It's true that Marie Stopes International operates in China — providing contraceptives that reduce the number of abortions there. If Mr. Bush were trying to do something about coercive family planning in China by denouncing such abuses, I'd applaud him. But instead he's launching his administration on an ideological war against groups like the U.N. Population Fund and Marie Stopes. In fact, these groups are engaging China in just the way the White House recommends most of the time.

But of course, that's not what Mr. Bush cares about. What he cares about is courting the extreme right wing of his party; hence the cutoff of funding for both the UN Population Fund and the Consortium. Poor people and women don't matter; politics matters.