June 21, 2004

Unintended Consequences

Once again, the Bush Administration is pandering to its conservative base in an election year by attempting to destroy the UN Population Fund. Not content with withholding funding as it has the past two years, now it's attempting to isolate the organization by telling other UN funds like UNICEF that the United States may not support them because their funds "could" be commingled with UNFPA.

Pressed by opponents of abortion, the administration withdrew its support from a major international conference on health issues this month and has privately warned other groups, like Unicef, that address health issues that their financing could be jeopardized if they insist on working with the agency, the United Nations Population Fund.

What seems to be needed here is another Joseph Welch, who famously asked Senator McCarthy at the Army hearings in 1954 (50 years ago last week): "Until this moment, senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness....Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

The idiocy of the Administration's policy seems apparent: by refusing funding, more women in the developing world will have no access to family planning instruction, including contraception and abstinence, thus inadvertently creating an atmosphere where more abortions are likely, not fewer.

The women of the world deserve better.

Posted by Linkmeister at June 21, 2004 09:58 AM
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