GOP Lawmakers Say China Should Not Receive UNFPA Funds, Cite Recent Coercive Abortion Case

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 20 Nov 2008 - 6:00 PDT

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The Chinese government reportedly has abandoned plans to force a woman who is six months pregnant to have an abortion under the nation's one-child policy, CNSNews.com reports. Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) -- both members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China -- said the case demonstrates that the U.S. should not reinstate funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which the Bush administration blocked in 2002 on the grounds that UNFPA money was being used to support coercive abortion procedures under China's one-child policy.

Radio Free Asia and the Uyghur Human Rights Project reported that Chinese authorities on Monday took Arzigul Tursun -- a member of the Uyghur Muslim ethnic minority -- to a hospital against her will, where she was expected to have an abortion, according to CNSNews.com (Goodenough, CNSNews.com, 11/19). Under China's one-child policy, ethnic minorities -- such as the Uyghurs -- are permitted to have up to three children if they live in rural areas and up to two children if they live in urban areas, ABCNews.com reports. Tursun's status was unclear because she lives in a rural area, while her husband is from a city, according to ABCNews.com (Schecter, ABCNews.com, 11/17).

UNFPA has lost about $240 million since the 2002 funding block, CNSNews.com reports. President-elect Barack Obama said he will restore the funding, a pledge that is also part of the Democratic Party platform. UNFPA has denied supporting coercive population control practices through its work in China, adding that its programs are "designed to demonstrate that voluntarism and informed choice are key to successful family planning programs," which aim to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and the need for abortion, according to CNSNews.com (CNSNews.com, 11/19).

Earlier this week, Smith and Pitts made a personal appeal to Chinese ambassador Zhou Wenzhong to release Tursun. Smith said, "The Chinese Government is notorious for this barbaric practice, but to forcibly abort a woman while the world watches in full knowledge of what is going on would make a mockery of its claim that the central government disapproves of the practice and of the [UNFPA] pretense that it has moderated the Chinese population planners' cruelty" (ABCNews.com, 11/17). They said in a statement after Tursun's release, "The decision to spare [Tursun] and her child from the tragedy of forced abortion is, we hope, a sign that more women in China will be saved from this grave human rights abuse." They added that they will continue to closely monitor the case "to help ensure that she and her family do not suffer any direct or subtle forms of retribution" (CNSNews.com, 11/19).

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