Copyright 2002 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
May 16, 2002, Thursday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A06
LENGTH: 622 words
HEADLINE:
Abortion Issue Stalls U.N. Family Planning Funds
BYLINE: Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
At the behest of House GOP
leaders, lawmakers voted yesterday to delete language from an emergency spending
bill that would have forced the Bush administration to provide international
family planning funds to the United Nations.
The 32 to 30 vote by the
Appropriations Committee represents the latest example of how the abortion wars
have ensnared several unrelated bills in recent months. With a consensus on
abortion rights still eluding Congress, lawmakers have engaged in a form of
legislative hostage-taking, threatening to bring down bills that deal only
tangentially with abortion. Last week, for example, the House Appropriations
Committee adopted a provision that would compel the administration to release $
34 million in previously appropriated funds by July 10 to the United Nations
Family Planning Fund, an agency that serves women in developing countries. But
Republican leaders, who say the agency implicitly endorses forced abortions and
sterilizations in China by funding projects there, insisted on removing the
language before passing an emergency defense spending bill.
"My guess
is, if you don't fix it, you don't pass the bill," House Majority Leader Richard
K. Armey (R-Tex.), told reporters. "It's a big deal."
Congress and the
White House agreed to appropriate the $ 34 million last year, but abortion
opponents lobbied against releasing the money. The administration has frozen the
funds, saying it is awaiting the results of a three-person investigative team
the State Department dispatched to China on Sunday.
But the U.N. agency
insists it supports only voluntary family planning in China, and a bipartisan
group of lawmakers have pressed the White House to release the money. If both
chambers approve language similar to the original House amendment, the White
House would have no choice but to release the funds.
"This is about an
agency that has nothing to do with abortion, that has nothing to do with
coercion," said Susan Cohen, government affairs director for the Alan Guttmacher
Institute.
This week's fight over the emergency defense bill is not the
only abortion-related congressional standoff. A
bankruptcy bill, five years in the making, is stalled over a
Senate provision that would prevent people from declaring
bankruptcy as a way of ducking court-imposed fines or damages
stemming from abortion clinic protests.
Several House
Republicans have balked at embracing the final bill, arguing the language
introduced by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) targets a specific class of
debtors -- abortion opponents.
"It's really too bad that my good friend
Senator Schumer has such an unyielding devotion to the cause of
abortion that he would defeat a good
bankruptcy bill," said Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.).
Another bill, which would fund 3,500 community health centers, has been
in limbo for five months, ever since Armey tried to insert language that would
have allowed hospitals and health plans to opt out of providing abortion
services and referrals. After several Democrats and Republicans told Armey they
would fight his provision, the GOP abruptly pulled the otherwise
noncontroversial bill.
Several Republicans said abortion rights
proponents are largely to blame for the disputes. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) said
that under the measure Congress adopted last year Bush could spend "up to" $ 34
million on the U.N. family planning agency, but he was not compelled to do it.
Tiahrt successfully offered an amendment yesterday leaving the question of
whether to spend the money up to the White House, simply asking the
administration to report to Congress by July 31 on whether the U.N. agency
promotes forced abortions or sterilizations.
LOAD-DATE: May 16, 2002
