|
In 2001 the United Nations sent a high-level delegation to China that came back with praise for the UNFPA and a recommendation for continued support.
None of this matters to the administration or their Republican allies. According to Republican Chris Smith of NJ, "The UNFPA continues to be guilty of shamelessly supporting and whitewashing terrible crimes against humanity, and the United States will have no part in subsidising them." And Powell dismissed the 2002 Blue Ribbon Panel that reported directly to him that the UNFPA was not involved in abetting coerced abortions in China "as being `only one piece of the picture,' according to one State Department official, and funds were withheld." Despite not offering any evidence to support their claims, and despite being contradicted by their own investigations, the administration will continue to hold the funding, which according to the UN program Washington spokesperson, will result in "2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 deaths of infants and children."
To mollify their anti-abortion supporters, the Bush administration is pursing a policy that will result in 800,000 preventable abortions. That's obviously a stupid policy if the goal is to limit abortion. But as stupid as the policy is, it's probably more repugnant for being another case where the Bush administration inflates and passes on the costs of its political payoffs to the people least capable of paying the price. Defunding an international family planning program is a cheap way for the Bush administration to maintain the support of anti-abortion advocates without provoking much political backlash at home. None of the people who will pay the costs--the women and children who will die, the men who will become widowers, the parents who will lose children or the kids who will become orphans--none of them can stand in the way of Bush staying in the White House, so Bush and the Republicans took the easy (but unconscionable) choice to stick them with the bill.
Remember that figure: over 80,000 deaths because George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress won't abstain from hopping into bed with people who promise to love them on election day but won't be around when it's time for the rest of us to assume responsibility for the results of the political promiscuity.
|
|
