U.N. Agency Loses U.S. Aid in Abortion Dispute

The U.S. Agency for International Development on Wednesday withheld $10 million earmarked for the U.N. Fund for Population Activities, accusing it of promoting “coercive abortion” and involuntary sterilization in China.

Anti-abortion groups immediately praised the action but the nonprofit Population Institute accused the Reagan Administration of bowing to conservative special interest groups.

Recent legislation allowed AID to withhold funding if it found that the U.N. organization tries to “support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

The Washington announcement was the formal ratification of a decision last March to withhold $10 million of $46 million in AID funds earmarked for the U.N. agency.

Just before a visit to Washington last July, Chinese President Li Xiannian rejected charges that China uses forced abortions and sterilizations, saying the accusations are “totally a fabrication and distortion and the Chinese people are utterly indignant.”

‘Sufficient Evidence’ Found

AID Administrator M. Peter McPherson said the agency found “there is sufficient evidence to indicate that UNFPA participates in the management of the China family planning program and also that implementation of China’s one-child-per-family policy has resulted in these abuses.”

The U.N. agency defended its China program and cited research by AID itself in April, 1984, and March, 1985, that contradicted assertions that the agency supports coercive population control.

“UNFPA does not support abortion or coercion in any country,” the executive director of the fund, Rafael Sala, said in a statement. “It does provide support for a wide range of population programs including . . . voluntary family planning in more than 140 countries around the world.”

The Chinese government had no immediate comment on the U.S. announcement.

The National Right to Life Committee, however, applauded the Administration’s decision.

“Today’s Administration action sends a strong message to the Chinese government that forcing millions of women to submit to abortions is repugnant to the American people,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the committee.

‘Weak-Kneed Surrender’

But Werner Fornos, president of the Population Institute, called the action “capricious and arbitrary and a weak-kneed surrender to a powerful minority which has seized control of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus.”

Fornos said the real coercion will occur under AID’s new policy, forcing women in the Third World to rely on natural family planning, a birth control method with a failure rate of 40%.

McPherson said the $10 million will be used to finance voluntary population and family planning programs in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Near East. AID currently spends $290 million for voluntary family planning programs in the developing world.

“Reprogramming these funds reflects the Administration’s policy to provide substantial support for voluntary family planning but firm opposition to abortion and coercive population control practices,” the U.S. agency said in a prepared statement.

AID said it would consider providing assistance to the U.N. agency in 1986 if it could show that China prevents coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization or if the agency altered its assistance to China.

But in an interview with the Washington Post, McPherson conceded that “it will take a dramatic change in the way the UNFPA does its business in China” to restore U.S. support.