The Bush administration will withhold $34 million in congressionally approved assistance to the U.N. Population Fund because of the fund's connection to China and forced abortions, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday.

The State Department said it was convinced the fund helped China manage programs that involved forced abortions.

Powell said the administration would continue to help the world's women and children through other programs.

The U.N. fund called the U.S. allegation baseless. "UNFPA has not, does not and will not ever condone or support coercive activities of any kind, anywhere," said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the fund formerly known as the U.N. Fund for Population Activities.

The U.N. group estimated the blocked U.S. funds could have helped prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 mothers' deaths in childbirth and 77,000 infant and child deaths. (yesterday's AP wire, via the Indianapolis Star)

This is the third year the Bush administration has used these allegations to cut off funding to the UNFPA, and it worth noting that the allegations did not originate with State Department:

Last year [2001] Bush himself asked for $25 million for UNFPA activities. Congress upped that to $34 million. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate that UNFPA's work in maternal and child health care, voluntary family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention was "invaluable."

Then, a tiny far-right group called the Population Research Institute (PRI), backed by Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), charged that UNFPA was promoting the cause of forced abortion and sterilization in China. UNFPA, which works in more than 139 countries besides China, vehemently denies that claim. In fact, its officials say, their policy is just the opposite. In China, they are trying to change policies that force women to have abortions and punish families that want more than one child.

UNFPA's impressive executive director, Thoraya Obaid, says firmly, "A condition for our programs [in China] is to eliminate the coercion."

"The Population Institute says we work through the Chinese. Yes, we do, but to retrain them to have a different view," Obaid says. "We do not in any way believe in abortion. We do not fund abortion." That policy, she adds, applies not only to China but also to the whole world.

But Bush didn't have to take Obaid's word. The State Department sent out a fact-finding mission in May that found no evidence the UNFPA program knowingly supported or participated in programs of coercive abortion. The British Parliament also sent out an investigative team, led by a leading conservative member of Parliament, Edward Leigh, which came to the same conclusion.

And, keep in mind, according to current law none of the $34 million would have gone to U.N. programs in China. Instead, it would have helped women all over the world.

Nonetheless, based on the false PRI claims, Bush axed the UNFPA funds and assigned the money to much narrower U.S. aid programs that reach only half as many countries. Trying to protect the Bush image of compassion, the White House asked the State Department to make the announcement. This was yet another rebuff of Colin Powell.

Even more disturbing is that the President would base his decision on testimony from the PRI. This is a fringe group that writes in a fund-raising appeal, "Suddenly, you and I have a god-given opportunity to drive the final nail into the coffin of U.N. Population Fund abortionists."

PRI is a spin-off of Human Life International (HLI), a group with an anti-Semitic bent. Its founder, the Rev. Paul Marx, repeatedly charged that Jewish doctors controlled the abortion movement. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, criticized Marx for his "ludicrous claims." (from an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer, July 2002)