A U.S. House Committee voted to take on pro-abortion President Barack Obama and two of his early decisions to force Americans to fund pro-abortion groups. They voted to keep language in a foreign appropriations bill that defunds the UNFPA and restores the Mexico City Policy.
During his first week in office, Obama wasted no time in overturning the Mexico City Policy that President Bush put back in place after it was scrapped during the Clinton administration. The Mexico City Policy requires the more than 600 groups that receive State Department taxpayer funding to pledge not to promote or perform abortions with it. Abortion advocates objected to the measure for years during the Bush administration because they want to use the funds to do abortions overseas or lobby pro-life nations to reverse their laws against unlimited abortions.
Obama also restored tens of millions in taxpayer funding for the UNFPA despite its abortion advocacy and the fact that it works hand in hand with population control officials in China who enforce the nation’s one-child-policy with forced abortions and sterilizations. The Bush administration had withheld the funds because of the UNFPA-China population control program ties.
The State and foreign operations bill Republicans put forward contains pro-life policies revoking the funding and pro-abortion Democrats filed amendments to try to remove them from the bill — but each amendment was defeated.
Rep. Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, offered an amendment to strip out the pro-life provisions and send $39 million to UNFPA but her amendment was defeated 27-23 with Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen joining Democrats in supporting the pro-abortion amendment.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, filed an amendment that also would have restored UNFPA funding, but the amendment was defeated by a tie vote of 24-24.
Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, put forward an amendment to restore UNFPA funding, with different language than her counterparts, and that amendment died 27-22.
When he funded UNFPA, President Obama ignored the connection between the UNFPA and the Chinese forced-abortion program. Following the governmental investigation done during the Bush years, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had no doubt that the UNFPA was complicit in the population control program.
“I determined that UNFPA’s support of, and involvement in, China’s population-planning activities allowed the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion,” he wrote.
The State Department investigation came after a groundbreaking probe led by the Population Research Institute.
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Colin Mason, PRI’s media director, confirmed to LifeNews.com that it stands by its probe showing the UNFPA involved in the program.
“Our investigation remains valid,” Mason said. “We put boots on the ground, and made the results available to anyone who wanted them. Those who would disregard our findings show an appalling lack of respect for human rights.”
PRI’s initial report, entitled “UNFPA, China, and Coercive Family Planning,” is based on an investigation conducted by PRI researchers in China’s Sihui County.
Relying on interviews with over two dozen victims and witnesses, the 2001 investigation found that coercive abortion and sterilization practices were taking place where the UNFPA had supposedly instituted a “client-centered and voluntary family planning program.”
In fact, PRI’s investigation discovered that the UNFPA shared an office with the very Chinese family planning officials who were carrying out forced abortions.
