United Nations Population Fund: Assault on the World’s Peoples

By Douglas A. Sylva, Ph.D. | August 13, 2002

UNFPA acts contrary to its self-declared “strict policy” not to provide support for abortions or abortion-related activities anywhere in the world.  The author, a political theorist and a historian of ideas, closely analyzes the language employed by UNFPA, which tries to qualify this “strict policy.”  For example, while UNFPA is officially against abortion as “a method of family planning,” it wants to combat “unsafe abortions.”   Similarly, UNFPA’s insistence that abortion is a termination of pregnancy (rather than the end of the life of a fetus) allows UNFPA to define abortion as prevention of fetal implantation rather than conception.

Thus, UNFPA has funded a plethora of NGOs (including abortion providers such as International Planned Parenthood Federation) whose activities remain far from being strictly uninvolved in abortion-related activities.  Examples cited include studies produced on abortion, distribution of manual vacuum aspirators marked as “pregnancy termination kits,” and potentially abortifacient emergency contraception.

UNFPA has also expressed support for China’s one-child policy known for its coercive practices, and has not withdrawn funding from Peruvian and Vietnamese government programs that have engaged in forced sterilization. The paper recommends that donor countries investigate UNFPA’s activity with a possible view to withdraw their funding.

Douglas A. Sylva holds a Ph.D, in political theory from Columbia University and was the Director of the International Organizations Research Group (IORG) from 2001-2003.

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