Population Fund Voted Aid Despite Abortions Policy

The Senate, on a narrow vote, moved today to reverse a 4-year-old policy and resume U.S. aid to the U.N. Population Fund, over objections that the fund supports Chinese forced-abortion policies.

The 52-48 vote came on an amendment to a $14.4-billion foreign aid bill providing military, economic and development help to U.S. allies and friends around the globe for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The Senate still has to complete work on the measure, then work out differences with the House before sending the bill to President Bush for his signature.

Lawmakers backed a provision in the bill providing $15 million to the U.N. population control agency, which last received U.S. money in 1985. The Ronald Reagan Administration shut off aid in light of charges that China has a one-child-per-family policy enforced through compulsory sterilization and abortions. Bush has continued that policy.

“The People’s Republic of China continues to engage . . . in ethically heinous, grievous violations of the human rights of parents” and of unborn children, argued Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.), an abortion opponent.