By Thomas Eichler
Washington File Staff Writer

The United States has decided to stop a scheduled $34 million U.S. contribution to the United Nations Population Program (UNFPA), shifting the money instead to its bilateral population programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Announcing the decision July 22, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said the action was necessitated by a finding that some UNFPA funds go to agencies in China that carry out coercive family planning programs. A 1985 U.S. law, the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, forbids U.S. funding to support programs that carry out "coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."

Boucher said the $34 million will instead be spent on USAID's Child Survival and Health Program Fund. He said the planned total of bilateral U.S. spending on population programs this year was $446.5 million, and the $34 million will be added to that.

Boucher said U.S. reproductive health programs "have a particular focus on the special needs of youth, protection against unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and also post-abortion care for women suffering complications from unsafe abortion."

Boucher said the U.S. decision was based on the report of a State Department assessment team that visited China in May, and subsequent legal analysis by State Department lawyers of Chinese regulations on population policy and other information. Under the legislation, the secretary of state has been delegated to make the final decision in these cases, he said, and Secretary of State Colin Powell made the decision, based on the recommendations of an interagency team.

Offering an example of the evidence leading to the decision, Boucher said a regulation from Chongqing municipality in China stipulates that "'the birth of a child which violates government family planning policy results in levying a fee of two to three times the annual income of both respective parties involved,' and that repeat infractions double the penalties. In addition, those regulations state that any difficulties with the collection of the fee or exceeding the time limit for payment will result in an additional penalty."

Boucher said the Bush administration has made a commitment to maintain U.S. spending on population or reproductive health programs. "But in doing so," he said, "we wanted to make sure that our money went to programs that were voluntary, that were educational, that were making available information services and other things to couples so that they could decide on their own when to have children and how many children they wanted to have. We are very successful in supporting those programs around the world, and those are the kind of programs that we do want to support."

Boucher said U.S. officials have found no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China, but they have found that UNFPA does support and work with agencies that do carry out such programs.