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U.S. Probes U.N.-Funded Abortions in China NewsMax.com WiresWASHINGTON – The State Department announced Wednesday it would send a team of emissaries to China in the coming weeks to determine whether the U.N. Population Fund has operated in Chinese counties that practice forced abortions. "The team will be gathering information to assist the administration in determining whether or not the United Nations Population Fund's China program is in violation of U.S. law," the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement Wednesday. That law prohibits U.S. funding for organizations that promote or perform coercive abortions or involuntary sterilization. Photographic Evidence In October last year, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., held hearings presenting photographic evidence the U.N. Population Fund was violating that law, operating in counties where Beijing enforced the country's one-child policy. Smith's evidence came from Population Research Institute, a non-governmental organization whose mission is to expose human rights abuses around the world in the name of population control. Later a U.N. "investigation team" went to China and disputed the evidence. The evidence compiled by the group was enough to convince the Bush administration in January to freeze U.S. funding, approximately $34 million, for the U.N. Population Fund this year. Last month the fund's spokesman Sterling Scruggs claimed that the U.S. hold might result in 2 million unwanted pregnancies. Boucher said Wednesday that the State Department team would determine "whether the Fund is therefore eligible to receive U.S. Government funding as appropriated." 'Time to Conceal What Goes On' A spokesman for Rep. Smith told United Press International Wednesday that he was concerned the Chinese might have too much advanced notice and hide the evidence that the U.N. organization is working in counties that practice forced abortions. "There is concern that the advanced notice could give China time to conceal what goes on over there," spokesman Nick Manetto said. Boucher on Wednesday said the State Department did not share this concern. The team will include Ambassador William Brown, former deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Bonnie Glick, a former career foreign service officer with overseas postings in Ethiopia and Nicaragua; and Dr. Theodore Tong, associate dean and professor of public health at the University of Arizona. Copyright 2002 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
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