The Bush administration, known for its pro-life domestic policies, has been promoting abortions abroad. It sounds preposterous, doesn’t it? But the administration, by withholding the $34 million that Congress allocates annually to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has done exactly that.

The administration first decided to withhold funding from the UNFPA in 2002, after the International Right to Life Federation accused the UNFPA of promoting China’s coercive abortion program. Congress had already allocated funds to the UNFPA, but the Bush administration decided that the allegations against the UNFPA were valid, giving it the right, under federal law, to withhold Congress’ money.

No one has ever found evidence against the UNFPA. Studies sponsored by the British government as well as the United Nations have failed to find anything “incriminating.” Even a team sent by the administration to investigate the UNFPA reported that no evidence indicated that the “UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

Yet the administration continues to deny funding to the UNFPA with the premise that it is still working “in a highly coercive context,” referring to China’s coercive reproductive laws. This position is untenable. It is analogous to—and as absurd as—not allowing foreign journalists to report from China because they would be working in a similarly “coercive context.” Yet, by such reasoning, the U.S., a founder and once a primary financer of the UNFPA, became the only country ever to deny it funding for non-financial reasons.

Reports in fact show that the UNFPA operations have consistently reduced abortion rates. In the 32 countries where UNFPA is present, the increased availability of contraceptives and sexual health education has prevented unwanted pregnancies and reduced the average abortion rate from 18 out of every 1,000 live births to 11 out of every 1,000 live births—a rate lower than even that of the U.S. The statistics suggest that the administration, by withholding funds from the UNFPA, is in effect promoting abortions.

Cutting funding to the UNFPA also curtails the organization’s public health and women’s rights agenda and impedes its work in remote areas. UNFPA programs typically focus on everything from microfinance to research on population issues.

Angeline Martyn, the communications manager of Americans for UNFPA, described visiting a UNFPA mobile clinic in rural Mongolia this summer. “We were traveling for miles in the desert—there was literally nothing around. And then we reached these two tents,” she described. Inside one, “they were performing ultrasounds on local women.” In the next, she added, “they were using a Powerpoint presentation to teach local health workers how to handle problems that may come up in childbirth.” The UNFPA runs many similar operations that improve woman and child healthcare in poor, remote areas.

The withheld funding has hampered all of UNFPA’s efforts. “The $34 million,” Martyn told the Globalist, “could prevent 2,700 maternal deaths in childbirth or could provide enough contraception for 12 million women to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.” Congress earmarked $34 million to the UNFPA in 2002; the value of the withheld funds, however, continues to climb. This year, the administration denied $40 million to the UNFPA.

This is a regrettable example of decision-making gone awry. Though people in both the pro-life and pro-choice camps could have benefited from continued funding to the UNFPA, Bush’s uninformed, emotional decision has made consensus all but impossible and has damaged reproductive health opportunities for women around the world.

“We feel this is a bipartisan issue,” Martyn explained. “Our polling shows that 70 percent of Americans believe in and support the issues that the UNFPA works on, but don’t realize that is what the UNFPA does.”

Fortunately, it is not too late for this to change. Let’s hope that the next President reinstitutes funding to the UNFPA, a decision with bipartisan appeal that would benefit women’s health worldwide.

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