The legislation takes aim at the UNFPA over its partnership with the Chinese Communist Party.
Last evening, a group of more than 40 Republican congressmen led by Representative Chip Roy (R., Texas) introduced a bill that would prohibit continued U.S. funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the U.N.’s arm devoted to “global population and reproductive health.”
The ‘‘No Taxpayer Funding for the U.N. Population Fund” Act takes aim at the UNFPA by forbidding federal entities from distributing U.S. funds to the group, which describes its mission as to “deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.”
According to the text of the legislation, obtained exclusively by National Review, the bill stipulates that “no funds available to the Department of State or any other department or agency may be used to provide contributions directly or indirectly to the United Nations Population Fund.”
The bill’s sponsor told National Review in a statement that the move was based primarily on the UNFPA’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. “American tax dollars should never directly or indirectly support taking of innocent human life through abortion or the dehumanizing act of involuntary sterilization, and they certainly shouldn’t be used to support the oppressive, America-hating Chinese Communist Party in any way whatsoever,” Roy said.
In 2017, President Donald Trump withdrew U.S. support from the UNFPA, citing the group’s partnership with China’s National Health Commission, which has been found to coerce women into sterilization and abortion. Prior to the end of the Trump administration, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as “genocide” the Chinese government’s program of coerced sterilizations and abortions performed on Uyghur women.
Shortly after taking office, however, President Joe Biden reversed the Trump administration’s decision, directing the State Department to resume U.S. funding of the UNFPA.
“Polling from this year shows that a strong majority of Americans don’t want their taxpayer dollars funding abortion overseas,” Susan B. Anthony List Action said in a statement. “This legislation is urgently needed to disentangle American taxpayers from such egregious violations of human rights.”
Thomas McClusky, president of March for Life Action, said his group supports the legislation, as “the current administration plans to restart funding UNFPA despite the organization’s consistent support for China’s brutal child policy and the lack of evidence that UNFPA has changed course.“
“The United States should support human rights, not fund international groups complicit in their violation,” McClusky added.
The new legislation has the support of a number of significant conservative and pro-life organizations, including the political-action arms of the Heritage Foundation, Students for Life, March for Life, and the Susan B. Anthony List, as well as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.