Bush Vetoes Aid Bill; Abortion Funding Cited

President Bush on Sunday vetoed a $14.6-billion foreign aid bill that included emergency economic aid for Poland and Hungary because the legislation provides $15 million for a United Nations family planning agency.

The President contends that the agency finances compulsory abortions in China.

The President’s action marked the third time that he has vetoed a major bill containing funding for abortions. Neither the House nor Senate is expected to have the votes to override the veto and Congress thus may be forced to strip the provision from the bill and send it to the President again.

The bill would provide foreign aid for the 1990 fiscal year, including $532 million to help the troubled economies of Poland and Hungary.

A new bill to replace the one that was vetoed was scheduled to come before the House today.

The foreign aid legislation “would clearly place the United States in the position of supporting a program that in turn supports coercive abortions, a program that is inconsistent with American values,” Bush said. The veto drew quick responses from both sides of the abortion debate.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said that Bush’s veto tells population control agencies that “if you trample on human rights by supporting compulsory abortion programs, you’ll get no help from the U.S. government.”

Werner Fornos, president of the Population Institute, criticized the President.

“He’s selling out poor women throughout the world for his domestic political advantage, a dubious political advantage,” said Fornos. “Certainly the rest of America is not marching with him in this insensitive, callous action.” Bush’s major objection is $15 million earmarked in the bill for the U.N. fund that provides money to China’s population control activity. The Chinese have been accused of requiring sterilization and forced abortions in efforts to limit families to one child.

The President also opposes a section in the bill that prohibits using foreign aid to encourage other countries to carry out military activities in violation of U.S. law. This section was prompted by the Iran-Contra scandal, in which American officials solicited other nations to provide funds for the Contras in Nicaragua. The Congress previously had cut off U.S. aid to the Contras.

Administration officials said that the legislation would improperly restrict the President’s ability to conduct foreign policy.

The biggest beneficiaries of foreign aid in the bill would be Israel, which would receive $3 billion, and Egypt, which would get $2.1 billion.

The Senate passed the foreign aid bill last week, despite the White House veto threat. The House originally had bowed to presidential pressure and decided to effectively block funding for the U.N. agency. However, on Thursday, the House reversed itself and passed the measure in the same form as had the Senate.

In other abortion vetoes, the President on Oct. 21 vetoed a bill providing funds for two Cabinet agencies, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. The funding bill, for the first time since 1981, would have permitted federal funding of abortions for victims of rape and incest. The House tried to override the veto, but fell 51 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed.

A new bill was prepared, allowing federal funding of abortions only when the life of the mother “would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term.” This single exception for permissible abortions has been contained in the Labor-HHS spending bills for the last eight years and presumably is acceptable to the Administration.

The President also vetoed an appropriations bill for the District of Columbia, because it would have permitted the district government to use locally raised funds to pay for abortions.