Recently, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) issued a directive to prohibit six African countries (Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe) who receive contraceptives purchased by the United States from collaborating with Marie Stopes International (MSI), an international Planned Parenthood-like organization, because MSI is a major player in a U.N. program in China that promotes coerced abortion and sterilization.  While MSI denies that it supports China's coercive policies, its pro-abortion policies and its work with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) make this denial ring hollow.

U.S. law prohibits taxpayer funds from going to any organization that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” This law, called the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, dates back to President Ronald Reagan.

Since 2002, President Bush has placed non-government organizations “on notice” that the U.S. will not support any organization that does not comply with Kemp-Kasten.  And because of his Administration’s vigilance, Kemp-Kasten has been an effective vehicle to block U.S. money from supporting coercive abortions and sterilizations through UNFPA.

Under the guise of preventing unplanned, unwanted pregnancies, pro-abortion groups are railing against President George Bush and his administration. These pro-abortionists are attempting to scare the American public into believing that the Bush Administration wants to eliminate contraception, increase maternal deaths and condemn African populations to death because they will no longer have condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

However, these claims are simply unfounded. President Bush’s policy will still ensure that the contraceptives continue to be made available to women and girls in these needy African countries.  The administration is simply seeking other organizations to distribute these products to ensure that programs that support forced abortions and sterilizations are not being enriched at U.S. taxpayer expense.

MSI chief executive Dana Hovig claims, “At a time when world governments have pledged to increase their commitment to improving the health of women, only the Bush Administration could find logic in the idea that they can somehow reduce abortion and promote choice for women in China by causing more abortion and gutting choice for women in Africa.  This senseless decision is likely to have only one clear consequence: the death of African women and girls.”

It is incomprehensible that MSI claims that African women and girls will be left with little choice other than abortion.  MSI is the agency in Africa that is responsible for many of the abortions that are performed.  And, in fact, MSI Program Director for South Africa Paul Comellisson once boasted during a conference that “once we open a center, we can help people.  We do illegal abortions all over the world.”

According to Concerned Women for America President Wendy Wright, “At a 2007 abortion conference in London, a UNFPA official openly stated that, even though UNFPA is not supposed to fund abortions, it funnels money directly to organizations that do abortions.  UNFPA officials have praised China's abusive one-child policy and helped develop it.  Marie Stopes is a major international abortion provider that gets funding from UNFPA, and its official boasted that it does illegal abortions.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots on this one.  The U.S. can fund contraception programs without giving resources to abortion providers, and we certainly shouldn’t be violating U.S. law by giving resources to abortion providers that are accomplices in China’s forced abortion atrocities.”

With such unconscionable disregard for precious human life through forced abortion and sterilization, we should take heart that President Bush has taken this strong, though often unpopular stance to protect and defend life.

Please call the White House at 202-456-1414 or email president@whitehouse.gov to thank President Bush for his actions.

For more information on the UNFPA’s teen pregnancy policy, please read “The U.N.’s Solution to Teen Pregnancy” by Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse.