Women's health at stake

Detroit Free Press: Congress should pass two measures to make it harder for President Bush to undermine international family planning efforts to score domestic political points. U.S. abortion politics has too long interfered with women's health in developing countries.
The State Department authorization up in the House restores U.S. contributions to the U.N. Population Fund. Last year, Bush blocked the $34 million Congress allocated, citing the Kemp-Kasten Amendment. That says foreign funding cannot go to any organization the president says "supports or participates in ... coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."
Funding freeze
Despite long-held myth, UNFPA does not support China's barbarous one-child program; in fact, it fights it. Still, Bush froze funding for a valuable program that educates women so they can control their family size, have healthier children, and improve their family's lot in life.
An amendment sponsored by Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., would give UNFPA $50 million for each of the next two years. It also limits a president's ability to invoke Kemp-Kasten unless an organization "directly" supports coercive abortion.
Across the Hill, the Senate on Wednesday passed an amendment that would overturn the global gag rule, a presidential decree that prohibits organizations that take U.S. family planning aid from using non-U.S. dollars to counsel patients about abortion or campaign to make it safer. The new bill prohibits the United States from restricting foreign aid in ways that would be illegal here, such as trampling free speech.