Congress Will Fund UNFPA, Forced Abortions for Obama, Representative Says
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 13, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — One of the leading pro-abortion members of the House of Representatives says Congress will do the dirty work for incoming president Barack Obama when it comes to funding the UNFPA and forced abortions. Rep. Carolyn Maloney held a press conference Wednesday discussing the taxpayer funding.
Maloney told reporters that the Democratic-controlled Congress, run by abortion advocates, will restore the $40 million annual funding to the UNFPA with Obama’s support.
“You know the president will have to do nothing,” Maloney said, according to CNS News. “He will just have to let the will of Congress go through. One of the changes is that UNFPA will be funded.”
Maloney’s press conference coincided with a new United Nation’s report on population and she told reporters that a major change in attitude towards the pro-abortion United Nations will come into play with Obama in the White House.
“This report could not be more timely,” CNS reporting Maloney saying.
“It’s all about cultural change, and we are really about to see major cultural change in Washington. Part of that hope and change will be a new attitude toward reports like this one, and I am confident we can be very sure (the report) will be taken to heart and listened and studied by our new president," she added.
She said she is "thrilled" with the new pro-abortion direction the Obama administration will take and said the United States will no longer “impose our own ideology” against abortion.
If Congress or the Obama administration restore the UNFPA funding, Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for National Right to Life, tells LifeNews.com it would be looking the other way at a federal law prohibiting the funding of groups that are involved in forced abortion programs.
"Since 1985, U.S. law has prohibited funding any organization that supports a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization," Johnson explained.
"The UNFPA has been a cheerleader for, and participant in, China’s coercive population control program. In order to restore funding to the UNFPA, Obama will have to turn a blind eye to the law," Johnson added.
The Kemp-Kasten Anti-Coercion law prohibits U.S. "population assistance" funds from going to any organization that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
The last time Congress voted on the law was in September 2007, when the Senate , in crafting the Fiscal Year 2008 State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill, removed the traditional Kemp-Kasten language and replaced it with a far weaker provision.
When the bill reached the Senate floor, pro-life Senator Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican, offered an amendment to restore the traditional Kemp-Kasten anti-coercion language.
The Brownback Amendment passed, 48 to 45, but the Senate’s membership will lack as many pro-life votes next year and it will be easier for abortion advocates to restore UNFPA funding.
The last House vote came in June 2005 when Maloney an amendment to prohibit enforcement of "any provision of law that prohibits or restricts funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)."
The Maloney amendment failed 233 to 192, but pro-abortion gains in the House will make it easier to adopt the Maloney amendment or remove it if inserted in the budget during the committee markup.
Pro-life advocates may have to rely on a filibuster from pro-life senators to hold up any language in the bill which weakens the Kemp-Kasten law or restores the funding unless it is removed.
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