U.N. Deal Hurts Women Worldwide

We are at an extraordinary--even bizarre--moment in our history. The greatest nation on Earth is allowing its foreign policy to be undermined by a minority with an agenda out of step with the American people and their values.

The fact is, Congress and President Clinton are being held up by a small gang of anti-choice Republicans extorting a precious price: the health care, reproductive services and even the very lives of millions of women around the world.

How did this happen? Strangely, through a deal to get the United States to pay past dues to the United Nations, dues that have gone unpaid because the anti-choice minority in Congress has been trying to impose its views on everyone for years--unsuccessfully until now. This time, they succeeded in keeping the U.S. from paying its U.N. dues long enough that the delay put at risk the U.S. vote at the U.N. General Assembly.

President Clinton has agreed to a compromise that will get the dues paid but will greatly inhibit the ability of family planning groups around the world to provide reproductive health care services to women.

For years now, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) has single-handedly blocked payment of U.N. dues, insisting that any such payments be linked to the so-called “Mexico City” language. This language could mean that no international family planning organization could get U.S. money if it lobbies its own government for changes in abortion laws.

Let us be clear: There is no U.S. funding for abortions overseas. Since 1973, federal law has prohibited the use of U.S. international family planning funds to perform or promote abortion. And since 1981, any lobbying on abortion has been banned.

In truth, what the anti-choice Republicans want to do is eliminate family planning services. They would do this by putting into law a global “gag rule” denying U.S. family planning assistance to any organization operating overseas that uses its own money to provide abortion services or engage in advocacy related to abortion. This language could even gag organizations from educating people about the dangers of unsafe abortion. Here in the U.S., this would be unconstitutional.

In the end, this strategy will lead to more, not fewer, abortions since it will reduce access to family planning services, the single most effective means of reducing abortion.

That’s not all. This “compromise” would cut funds for preventing unsafe abortions, unintended and high-risk pregnancies, maternal and child deaths and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. Each year, nearly 600,000 women die of causes related to pregnancy; 99% of those live in developing countries. Family planning can help prevent at least 25% of all pregnancy-related deaths.

President Clinton did reserve the right to exercise a waiver so that some of these organizations can engage in family planning activities, but the waiver comes at a price: a 3%, or $12.5-million, cut in the $385-million annual international family planning budget. Every dollar of that will be lost to programs that protect women’s health in developing countries.

There has never been a legitimate connection between payment of our U.N. dues and international family planning. Though the battle was lost, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was right to argue that these two issues should be kept separate, and the president and this Congress are wrong to accept this deal.

President Clinton has been strongly committed to protecting women’s health and reproductive rights in this country. He’s on record vetoing a bill that included the Mexico City language because he and his administration recognized that it would hurt women worldwide.

Unfortunately, a small group of Republican anti-choice lawmakers in Congress has forced his hand. Pro-choice lawmakers from both parties must push back against this gang. We can’t allow them to impose an agenda that is at odds with the American people.

For Rep. Smith and others, the goal is simple: an end to legal abortion. That’s not what the United States wants. But the risk is real. In Congress, there is already an anti-choice majority, and our next president will appoint two or three Supreme Court justices, enough to overturn Roe vs. Wade. The risk to a legal abortion here in the U.S. is now very real, as real as this assault on family planning services overseas.