80,000 Casualties in the War on Compassionate Conservatism

[DaveSZ]

This is why the US is hated. It's a bunch of little things, and not only Iraq.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/17/185327/245


The Bush administration announced yesterday that it is withholding the United States' contribution to the UN Population Fund for the third straight year, once again accusing the family-planning organization of supporting coercive abortion in China.

The decision to withhold $34 million -- about 10 percent of the fund's total budget -- from the world's largest international source of funding for family planning came on the last day of the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, where US officials emphasized abstinence as an important way to combat AIDS.

In Washington, family-planning activists and some members of Congress said the decision was a political move to curry favor with conservative voters who want to restrict family-planning practices worldwide. Some cited a 2002 investigation by a State Department team and a 2003 State Department human rights report, which both said that the fund was working to combat coercive family-planning practices in China...

''We recognize that the aim of the UN Population Fund is to promote a transition to truly voluntary family planning in China, but the circumstances of their operations are such that they are assisting the Chinese in managing their programs," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. ''These Chinese programs have penalties that amount to coercion."

-more