FAMILY FUND: The Obama administration's reinstatement of funding to the United Nations Population Fund helps the agency's efforts around the world to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
Image: Photo courtesy CIMMYT/Flickr
Dear EarthTalk: Global population numbers continue to rise, as does the poverty, suffering and environmental degradation that goes with it. Has the U.S., under Obama, increased or at least restored its family planning aid to developing countries that was cut when the Bush Administration first took office?— T. Healy, via e-mail
The short answer is yes. President Obama is much more interested in family planning around the world than his predecessor ever was. One of Obama’s first acts upon assuming office in 2009 was the restoration of funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). George W. Bush had withheld some $244 million in aid to the UNFPA over the previous seven years. UNFPA works with developing countries around the world to “reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.”
Reinstated U.S. funding will help the agency pursue its goals of universal access to reproductive health services, universal primary education and closing of the gender gap in education, reducing maternal and infant mortality, increasing life expectancy and decreasing HIV infection rates.
Along with restoring UNFPA funding, Obama also overturned the so-called “Global Gag Rule” that prohibited groups funded by the U.S. Agency in International Development (USAID) from using any government or non-government funds for “providing advice, counseling or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make abortion available.” Foreign nonprofits were already not allowed to use U.S. funds to pay for abortions, but the Global Gag Rule—first instituted as the ‘Mexico City Policy’ in 1984 by the Reagan White House, then overturned by Clinton and later reinstated by George W. Bush—went further by restricting the free speech rights of government grantees and stifling public debate on the contentious topic. Foreign NGOs that accept U.S. funding still cannot perform abortions, but can discuss the options openly with the families they serve.
“For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us,” said Barack Obama upon overturning the policy as one of his first acts in office. “It is time that we end the politicization of this issue.”
Of course, advocates for increased family planning are pressuring the Obama administration to step up its efforts aboard even more. The Institute of Medicine, one of four government-affiliated nonprofit “academies” of experts, recommended last spring that the U.S. increase its spending on global health by some 50 percent over the $63 billion pledged by the Obama White House over the next six years.
Groups providing family planning services domestically would also like to see the Obama administration step up funding for their programs, not only to improve the quality of life for American families but to save money and reduce abortions as well: A 2009 report by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute concluded that publicly funded family planning services at both hospitals and non-profit clinics saves taxpayers $4 for every $1 spent by preventing nearly two million pregnancies and 810,000 abortions per year.
CONTACTS: UNFPA, www.unfpa.org; USAID, www.usaid.gov; Institute of Medicine, www.iom.edu; Guttmacher Institute, www.guttmacher.org.
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12 Comments
Add CommentThis article is full of half truths and outright lies. Pretty sounding words cannot mask the dastardly deeds done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this “ensure that every pregnancy is wanted” means “everyone should have the right to murder their baby if they want.”
“every birth is safe” is a euphemism for “it is OK to murder a baby when it is better for all those involved therefore it is better for the baby to die because it is more safe”
“every young person is free of HIV/AIDS” is a euphemism for “When you have AIDS it is OK to abort the baby since we can’t ask you to abstain and you don’t care enough to prevent the tragedy.”
“every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect” is a code phrase for “What I do with my baby isn’t any of your business! It is private!”
When Obama says “providing advice, counseling or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make abortion available” he means the USA should pay for abortions, the right of others to lobby for abortions and to make payments to those who provide abortions.”
It is odd to me that we condone the genocide of perfect African babies and somehow think we are absolved of the murder of “God’s Blessing.” And…the UN is murdering 810,000 babies each year.
Another 244 million of our tax payer money wasted. We have to get this Obamanation fired, before he turns this country into one of these countries with their hands out to the UN...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdhisrel: A scientific forum is no place for 13 century burners of witches. Take your god and his immoral ideas of worshipping him and killing all who don't and go live a shepherds life. Do not avail yourself of any of the scientific benefits either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe world population is intolerably high and we need a one child policy like China had. Punishment should not be aborting the child but mandatory sterilisation of the mother and father.
Democracy (lowest common denominator selection)does not work amongst the ignorant people on earth.
stlrat: The USA is already a bankrupt third world nation sinking ever lower. Guess what made you that - an ignorant multitude of religious zealots.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe USA boomed and ruled the world while it had scientific aspirations. China's turn now.
"A 2009 report by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute concluded that publicly funded family planning services at both hospitals and non-profit clinics saves taxpayers $4 for every $1 spent by preventing nearly two million pregnancies and 810,000 abortions per year."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an investment, this is a no-brainer: financially sound, no coercion involved, enormous individual, social and environmental benefits. Surely, a shining example of public money well spent.
oldvic: They will never spend a cent for family planning, they want hoards of unwanted children for exploitation. Abortions create guilty feelings which can be exploited. Read The tragedy of the commons to understand what I an saying. You can read it for free here: http://dieoff.org/page95.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor some it represents business opportunities for others it represents grandiose ideas of filling the planet with their kind. (whatever that might be)
oldvic: Sorry to add another reply, but read comment 1 by "dhisrael" and you will understand what I am saying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI understand your despair and sometimes I share it. Certainly there are people such as your comment describes, but I'm convinced they will become less abundant once it becomes undisputable that we have grown beyond all reason.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI sometimes take a dark bit of pleasure from the fact, often ignored or swept under the carpet, that we live in a self-correcting system. If we fail to heed its laws and understand our limits, not to worry, Nature will take care of that for us.
Need I say that having no children (my case) lessens the anguish about this?
I am co-founder of 34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund, a grassroots movement we started when then President Bush withheld $34 million from UNFPA in 2002. There is a worldwide dearth of family planning commodities. Please watch this 80 second video on African women seeking but not finding contraceptives. www.empty-handed.org This is wrong. Human numbers are important. We will reach a popullatino of 7 billion this year and 9.1 billion by 2050 because of the huge numbers of young people on the planet today. For humanitarian reasons, for security reasons, and for people and the planet, investments in women's health, particularly reproductive health and family planning, education and human rights is a win, win, win, win. I hope you become one of 34 Million Friends. And just FYI, Egypt has a population now of 84.5 million, a total fertility rate of 2.77 children per woman and a projected population of 129.5 million by 2050. Education and jobs for all these new Egyptians. HMMM!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat to see that the life-saving work of the United Nations Population Fund being higlighted by this prestigious publication. Investments in family planning and maternal health are some of the most cost-effective and life-saving health care success stories (see Adding it Up published by the Guttmacher Institute). Bravo to the Obama Adminstration for their wisdom in investing in women's health and well-being.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A 2009 report by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute concluded that publicly funded family planning services at both hospitals and non-profit clinics saves taxpayers $4 for every $1 spent by preventing nearly two million pregnancies and 810,000 abortions per year."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just had a business idea. Private investors finance family planning services; the government pays them 2 dollars for every dollar spent, keeps the other 2 dollars to spend elsewhere or lower taxes, and duly oversees the process to ensure that it gets its money´s worth. A win-win-win situation.
I hereby waive all intellectual rights to this idea ;-)