Planning families

last updated 8 January 2015

New York

The Bush administration this week announced it would withhold $34 million from United Nations family-planning programs, and instead spend the money on its own health projects abroad. The U.N. Population Fund filters money to Chinese agencies involved with the country’s one-child policy, which coerces women to have abortions, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “No woman should be forced to have an abortion,” he said. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said U.N. employees do not “go around encouraging abortions.” The Population Fund, officials said, actually offers Chinese women an alternative to coercive government policies. The U.S. money, they said, could have helped prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies and 800,000 abortions.