Bush shows bias by withholding funds

By Michelle Singer

President Bush has maintained throughout his national political
life that he is a compassionate man not easily swayed by political
polling or interest groups. This characterization fell by the
wayside two weeks ago as he ordered already-allocated funds to be
withheld from the United Nations Population Fund, effectively
handing a victory to politically influential anti-abortion groups
and dealing a major setback for attempts to remedy the appalling
health care situation for women in poor countries.

Despite an ongoing debate over the United States’ support
of UNFPA, Secretary of State Colin Powell last year attested the
UNFPA is instrumental in providing “maternal and child health
care, voluntary family planning, screening for reproductive tract
cancers, breast feeding promotion, and HIV/AIDS prevention”
in 142 poor countries around the world. In a testimony at the
Senate, the influential secretary told legislators the agency does
“invaluable work.” In 2001, President Bush funded the
agency, and this year, under guidance from the State Department, he
asked Congress for $25 million in UNFPA funding and eventually
agreed to allocate $34 million for the program. The money was set
aside, and the issue supposedly closed.

Shortly after Congress approved the funding, several
anti-abortion lawmakers sent Bush a letter contending UNFPA
supported China’s despicable policy of forcing women to have
abortions if they have more than one or two children. In response,
Bush froze the funds and ordered a three-person team to go to China
and investigate the situation.

The team reported in late May, after visiting clinics and
interviewing doctors, that it found no evidence of UNFPA’s
support or participation in China’s forced abortion programs.
Every other nation involved in funding the program has come to the
same conclusion. The team recommended releasing the funds to
UNFPA.

Several anti-abortion interest groups then swung into action,
getting in touch with members of the White House. Among those
contacted were the influential political advisors Karl Rove and Tim
Goeglein, who many view as the administration’s unofficial
link to social conservatives. These anti-abortion groups presented
their own findings on UNFPA’s involvement in China, demanding
the White House take into consideration these reports even though
they contained numerous statements the UNFPA strongly denies.

Bush then made his most politically motivated action yet: he sat
on the money for two months and then hypocritically announced, in
conjunction with the State Department, that despite his
team’s findings and his earlier intentions to release the
money, he would not allow the money to go to UNFPA. The
anti-abortion groups rejoiced in the victory for their socially
conservative beliefs, and the White House showed its
partiality.

The most absurd part of this fiasco is no U.S. dollars go
directly to China in the first place. The United States has long
insisted its money be placed in a separate fund that in no way
supports the UNFPA’s agencies operating within Chinese
borders. Even so, the Bush administration was somehow able to use
the alleged China issue to hand its political supporters a victory
under the guise of a legitimate policy decision.

The $34 million the United States had allocated for UNFPA was 12
percent of its budget, which would have gone to preventing 2
million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 mother
fatalities and 77,000 deaths among children under 5 (assuming
current trends will continue).

Any person, compassionate or not, can see this money could have
had a huge impact on the health of women in poor countries. Powell
has said the money will instead go to the U.S.’s own
international health program, which operates in just more than half
as many countries as the UNFPA and has neither the same quality
facilities or ability to help as many people.

For a man who claims to be compassionate, Bush certainly is
providing a glaringly inadequate and contradictory glimpse into his
true priorities. It seems he would rather secure a few votes from
people who would ultimately support him regardless of his decision
than be a significant benevolent force in the lives of millions of
women who depend on the United States for their survival. Bush
shrugged off direct criticism, saying he was only concurring with
Powell’s decision.

But it is Bush who has placed Powell in the position time and
again of having his more moderate views publicly pushed by the
wayside as Bush accepts other more conservative positions above
Powell’s. Powell needs to stick up for his long-held
convictions and Bush needs to foster an environment that encourages
discussion and debate of important ideas instead of a unilateral,
top-down government influenced more by political advisors than top
diplomatic officials.

And as for the suffering women ““ apparently if they are
not potential constituents, they mean little if nothing to the
“compassionate” president of the world’s lone
superpower.