The State Department announced yesterday that it will send a 3-person delegation to China later this month to assess the United Nations Family Planning Association (UNFPA) activities there. The 3-member team will consist of William Brown, Former ambassador to Thailand and Israel, Bonnie Glick, a former Sate Department employee who worked in Ethiopia ad Nicaragua, and Dr. Theodore Tong, a public health professor from the University of Arizona. The delegation is expected to complete its visit and follow-up report by late June.
President Bush froze the US’s $34 million contribution to the UNFPA after anti-choice forces accused the agency of contributing to forced sterilizations and abortions in China. The UNFPA contends that it only works in Chinese counties where the one-child per family rule is no longer in effect and does not use US money for programs in China. Bush’s decision to freeze the US contribution has created a financial hardship for the UNFPA, resulting in staff and program cuts that could leave hundreds of thousands of women in developing countries without health care.
