Denying Family Planning Services to the World's Most Vulnerable Women:
The Defunding of UNFPA

What is UNFPA?
UNFPA, or the United Nations Population Fund, is the largest international source of funding for family planning and reproductive health services in the world. With the backing of the international community, UNFPA supports programs that help women in 140 countries plan their families, avoid unwanted pregnancies, and safely undergo pregnancy and childbirth. UNFPA's programs also help men, women, and young people to protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS, and combat violence against women. At a time when 350 million couples worldwide lack access to modern contraceptives, over half a million women die as a result of complications from pregnancy or childbirth every year, and 14,000 people—half of them between the ages of 15 and 24—are infected with HIV every day, UNFPA is a critical source of ongoing support to developing countries worldwide. During crises, UNFPA also provides humanitarian relief. For example, the agency is currently making emergency obstetric care available to women in Iraw, where maternal mortality rates have tripled since 1990 and 1 woman in 45 can expect to die in childbirth.

The Bush Administration’s Refusal to Fund UNFPA
In May 2001, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell testified to Congress that UNFPA “provides critical population assistance to developing countries” and recommended that the Administration maintain funding for the agency. Despite this recommendation, and a bipartisan congressional agreement on a $34 million U.S. contribution to UNFPA, the Bush administration cut off all funding for the agency in July 2002. As a justification, the Administration invoked the Kemp-Kasten amendment, a little-known provision that was first applied to foreign aid appropriations bills in 1985. Kemp-Kasten prohibits foreign aid funding for any organization that "supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization,” as determined by the President.

The Administration’s decision to apply Kemp-Kasten to UNFPA funding was based on false accusations made by the Population Research Institute (PRI)—a small, extremist organization that opposes all forms of contraception—that UNFPA supports forced abortion and sterilization in China. The claims were refuted by four separate investigative teams, including one sent by the U.S. Department of State. All four teams recommended the reinstatement of UNFPA funding, stating that, contrary to PRI’s accusations, UNFPA was playing a vital role in efforts to end coercive population control measures in China. Nevertheless, the Bush administration has continued to withhold funding.

After the initial funding freeze in 2002, the Bush administration promised that the $34 million withheld from UNFPA would be redirected to family planning programs in 19 countries, including 13 African countries, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Yet in January 2003, the State Department announced its intention to use these funds for non-family planning programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Administration has blocked the release of funds Congress intended for UNFPA five more times since July 2002 – preventing nearly $200 million from being used for UNFPA's work worldwide.

The Administration’s position on UNFPA leaves the United States standing alone.  UNFPA’s work is admired the world over – with 180 countries providing support for its work. 

Click here to read detailed testimony about UNFPA’s work in China from Nicolaas H. Biegmann, former IWHC board member and chair of an international team sent to investigate charges against UNFPA.

Click here to read PLANetWIRE's analysis of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment.

Click here to read UNFPA's statement on the Administration's refusal to release funds for the agency.

Attempts to Reinstate Funding for UNFPA
In a July 2003 attempt to free up the appropriation while addressing critics’ concerns, Reps. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) worked to clarify the Kemp-Kasten amendment. They inserted a provision in the State Department authorization bill to prevent U.S. foreign aid funds from going to programs that support coercive practices, but allows funds to go to programs offering family planning services that reduce abortion rates and counsel against coercive practices. But at the urging of Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a vocal opponent of family planning and reproductive rights, and with strong support from the White House, the House narrowly defeated this provision by a vote of 216-211 on July 15, 2003.

In a second attempt to secure a U.S. contribution to UNFPA, Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) offered an amendment on July 21, 2003 that would have required a $25 million contribution to be used only to prevent, treat, and repair obstetric fistula—a debilitating but easily preventable consequence of childbirth complications that primarily affects young women in the developing world. As a result of extensive tissue damage, obstetric fistula causes chronic incontinence and frequently results in women’s social stigmatization and isolation (for more information about fistula, click here). On a procedural, party-line vote, Reps. Crowley and Maloney were prevented from offering their amendment on the floor.

In 2005, several Members of Congress undertook new efforts to enable a U.S. contribution to UNFPA while responding to the Administration's concerns. In March 2005, during consideration of a bill that directed emergency funds to countries affected by the tsunami, the House and Senate drafted amendments to include a $3 million U.S. contribution to UNFPA to support their work in the tsunami-affected region. Specifically, the amendment would have supported UNFPA's efforts to provide emergency obstetric care and other maternal health services, protection against violence for women and youth in the affected areas, and HIV/AIDS prevention. The amendment passed in the House, but was dropped later in the legislative process.

Later that year, the Senate accepted two key provisions related to U.S. funding for UNFPA. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) included an amendment in the Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill for FY 2006 intended to restore U.S. funding, provided the funds were directed exclusively toward "non-controversial" reproductive health services: preventing and treating female genital mutilation and obstetric fistula, increasing the availability of birth control, and providing pre- and post-natal care for mothers and children. The Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill also contains a provision seeking once again to clarify the meaning of the Kemp-Kasten amendment so that it specifically safeguards against U.S. funding for any organization that "directly supports coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."

Trying a new approach in 2006, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) offered an amendment during a House committee's consideration of the Foreign Operations spending bill that should the Administration once again block funds for UNFPA's programs, the funds would be directed specifically to UNFPA's obstetric fistula prevention and treatment efforts. Opponents used weak arguments against the amendment including that funding UNFPA would somehow support abortion services (although no evidence was given to support such allegations). The other, offered by the Republican leadership, admitted that if this amendment to promote women's health were included in the bill, it would make it challenging to get it passed by the full House, revealing the lack of support in Congress at the time for these health services. Failing to recognize and prevent the maternal health travesties caused by obstetric fistula, the House Appropriations Committee rejected the amendment.

What You Can Do>>

Support legislation that supports UNFPA. Contact your Member of Congress and ask him or her to cosponsor the UNFPA Women’s Health and Dignity Act (HR 2604).  More information about the bill and how to contact your Representative can be found here.

Take advantage of opportunities to act. For timely alerts about congressional efforts to reinstate funding, check our action page regularly, or join our email action list. Visit Stay Informed, Take Action, our congressional factsheet, to find out about bills currently before Congress.

Make a contribution to UNFPA through the 34 Million Friends Campaign, a national grassroots movement dedicated to finding 34 million people willing to support the agency. Click here for more information.

Stay informed and spread the word. To learn more about Bush administration policies that are undermining women's and girls' health worldwide, visit Bush's Other War, our regularly updated factsheet. To learn about comparable actions taken by the 110th Congress, visit Stay Informed, Take Action, our congressional factsheet. Click  here for an overview of changes in U.S. foreign policy affecting women and girls since the Bush administration took office. To email this or any other page on our site to a friend, click on the link at the top right of the page.

Links of Interest

UNFPA's website

UNFPA's Campaign to End Fistula

34 Million Friends of UNFPA  

Page last updated in February 2008. For more information, contact Whitney Welshimer at 212-979-8500 or wwelshimer@iwhc.org.