...statements with protestations support for international family planning. Eighteen months later, however, the administration's record has begun to speak for itself.

Barely one year after he reinstated the gag rule, the president froze the funds Congress had just appropriated for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for FY 2002. A few weeks later, in his FY 2003 budget proposal to Congress, he asked that funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development's family planning and reproductive health program be cut from the FY 2002 level and that no funds be allocated to UNFPA ("Congress and Reproductive Health: Major Actions in 2001 and a Look Ahead," TGR, February 2002, page 11). Shortly thereafter, the administration began using the opportunities presented by various United Nations (UN)-sponsored global meetings to aggressively export its domestic "abstinence-only" campaign as well as its antiabortion views. Further, the administration began using these meetings more generally to distance itself from the worldwide consensus on reproductive and sexual health issues that the United States itself was instrumental in forging at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Actions...

UNFPA. Nine months into FY 2002, the United States still has made no contribution to UNFPA for the year. In December 2001, Congress appropriated "up to" $34 million for the agency, following extended debate, not over whether UNFPA should be funded but over how big an increase it should be given over the FY 2001 base of $21.5 million. Just a few weeks later, however, under pressure from Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and domestic interest groups overtly hostile to abortion and to birth control, the president announced that he would exercise his legal prerogative to withhold all support to UNFPA. As of early July, he continues to do so on the grounds...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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