Blasted with criticism, Vice President Biden is trying to take back what he said in Sichuan, China: that he “fully understands” China’s one-child policy, but is “not second-guessing” it. Chastened, Biden now says that China’s coercive population-control program is “repugnant.” Indeed, his spokeswoman insists that the entire “Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects of China’s coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization.”
Words spoken before the world in an official capacity cannot be unspoken. The bell, once rung, cannot be un-rung.
However, the Obama administration now has publicly admitted it knows that China practices forced abortion and sterilization. This is progress.
Should we believe that this administration “strongly opposes” these practices?
If the Obama administration “strongly opposes” forced abortion in China, then why did they restore funding to UNFPA (United Nations Family Planning Fund), an operative “abortion provider” in China? In 2001, the U.S. cut funding to UNFPA because an investigation, headed by then–Secretary of State Colin Powell, found that UNFPA was complicit in the coercive implementation of China’s one-child policy. In 2008, the U.S. State Department reaffirmed that determination, and yet the Obama administration resumed funding in 2009. President Obama’s FY 2012 budget requests $47 million for UNFPA.
The current administration also funds the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The IPPF works hand in hand with the coercive Chinese Communist population-control machine. Their website declares, “The China Family Planning Association (CFPA) plays a very important role in China’s family planning programme. It supports the present family planning policy of the government . . .”
Funding UNFPA and IPPF is not “strong opposition” to coercive family planning. It is support. At issue are the true aims behind the actions of the Obama administration. Are they “pro-choice,” as they say, or is their real aim population control, even if coercive?
Earlier this year, U.S. citizens voted to cut UNFPA funding under the new YOUCUT program. Because of this vote, Rep. Renee Ellmers (R., N.C.) will introduce legislation to cut UNFPA, saving $400 million over the next ten years.
If the Obama administration is sincere in saying it “strongly opposes . . . forced abortion and sterilization,” then it will either insist that UNFPA and IPPF cease operation in China, or it will defund these organizations.
— Reggie Littlejohn is president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers.