CFFC Report to Rehabilitate UNFPA Admits Chinese Coercion

By C-FAM Staff | 2003

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) In its continuing efforts to restore US financing for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the international abortion rights movement released today another report claiming that China’s coercive population control program is improving because of the involvement of the UN population control agency. However, the report, produced by a team of “religious leaders” sent to China by “Catholics” for a Free Choice (CFFC), admits that coercion still exists, and even argues that a major US human rights law needs to be weakened so that UNFPA does not run afoul of the provisions of the law through its work in China.

     The CFFC report was written to counter the findings of a May, 2002 US government investigation of UNFPA’s involvement in China. The US government determined that UNFPA operates in counties in which women who become pregnant with a second child must pay “extremely high fines and penalties” called social compensation fees. According to Secretary of State Colin Powell, such “crushing fines” constitute a “program of coercive abortion,” since they “have the purpose or effect of forcing mothers to have abortions.”

     The US government also found that UNFPA’s “support of, and involvement in, China’s population-planning allows the government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.” For instance, UNFPA provides surgical equipment that is used in “…the performance of abortions on those women who are coerced by the social compensation fees to undergo abortions that they would otherwise not undergo….Supplying equipment to the very agencies that employ coercive practices amounts to support or participation in the management of the program.”

     Based on this information, the Bush administration determined that a human rights law called the Kemp-Kasten Amendment precluded further US funding for UNFPA. The Kemp-Kasten Amendment makes it illegal for the US to fund any group that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

     CFFC’s report includes a two-pronged response to the US government. First, it downplays the significance, even the coercive elements, of the social compensation fees. Although it admits that such fees could be as high as “seven times” an average family’s annual income, it also claims that critics of the fees, including, presumably, Secretary of State Powell, describe them in a way that it is “factually and ethically wrong.” According to CFFC, “the fee does not appear to be either ‘crushing’ or ‘draconian.’” In US terms, an average family could be fined over $300,000 if a mother chose to have a second child instead of aborting the child.

     The report also approvingly quotes a woman who, when asked if the social compensation fees are coercive, responded, “Coercive? How can you say that? If I get rich and have money to buy a car and contribute to the traffic jams and pollution in this city, shouldn’t I pay something more than my friend who still rides her bike?”

     Secondly, CFFC calls for a major “revision” of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment. CFFC wants to alter the law so that it only outlaws funding for agencies that “directly” coerce women. This would render UNFPA eligible for funding, since it only indirectly supports the Chinese program.

     The Friday Fax is reported and written by Douglas A. Sylva, Vice President of C-FAM.

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