Bush opts out of $34m contribution to UN family-planning fund

THE Bush administration will not pay $34 million it earmarked for UN family-planning programmes aimed at controlling population overseas.

Conservative groups claim the schemes tolerate abortions and forced sterilisations in China. Critics of the decision said they smelled politics at work.

Administration officials, lawmakers and interest groups that monitor the issue said they have been told the decision is final.

One administration official said an announcement is likely from the State Department today, but added the timing could change.

White House officials privately said conservative activists have for months pressured the administration to prove President Bush’s anti-abortion credentials by permanently denying money to the United Nations Population Fund.

The fund helps countries deal with reproductive and sexual health, family planning and population strategy. Conservative activists helped carry Bush to the presidency, and his advisers have carefully tended them with an eye to his re-election.

But the family-planning decision could harm Bush’s standing with moderates and women.

Last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate the UN agency does “invaluable work” and “provides critical population assistance to developing countries”.

Bush himself proposed $25m for the organisation, an increase from the $21.5m it got during the last year of the Clinton administration. Lawmakers later agreed on $34m.

The president has already signed into law the bill that contains the $34m. But when he did so in January, he noted in an accompanying statement that it gives him “discretion to determine the appropriate level of funding for the United Nations Population Fund”.

A study from a US government fact-finding mission to China in May reportedly found no evidence the UN’s program facilitates forced sterilisations and abortions in China.