Hostility Amok

The struggle over American support for world population programs, which has become a campaign by some extremists to cripple the programs, will be renewed in the days ahead on the floor of the House of Representatives as Congress weighs the foreign-aid authorization bill.

As in the Senate, this legislation has become a focus of anti-abortion groups, often supported by those opposed to contraceptives, determined to impose their views on those abroad even though they have failed to force fellow Americans to abide by their rules. Such is the determination of these groups that they are more than willing to jeopardize effective population programs to further their crusade.

The bill that has emerged from the Foreign Affairs Committee has imperfections, but deserves passage. It would authorize a global population program of $320 million, up from $250 million in the current fiscal year. It would undo the mischievous regulation imposed by the Reagan Administration last year that eliminated funding from the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the most effective international agency in population work. It would affirm the opposition of Congress to the use of American funds for coercive birth-control programs.

A package of amendments will be thrown at the legislation by those who, in their hostility to abortion, would deny funding to any nation or any organization that might permit the very practices that are legal in the United States, or that might operate in a nation where coercive practices abhorred in the United States are permitted. American funding for abortion and coercive population programs already is prohibited. But this does not satisfy the sponsors of the amendments, whose discontent invites the suspicion that their real intent is to cripple effective population programs, to punish the organizations that are doing the best jobs.

If they succeed, they will have worsened the pressures of population that are already manifest in spreading starvation and absolute poverty.