The defeat in a House committee of a proposal to give $25 million in U.S. funds to the U.N. Population Fund was "a victory for women and children around the world, and for the U.S. taxpayer," said the U.S. bishops' chief spokeswoman on pro-life issues.

Cathy Cleaver Ruse, director of planning and information in the bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, praised the July 12 vote in the House Appropriations Committee on an amendment proposed by Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. The committee vote was 32-26 against Lowey's amendment.

"The United States should remain out of the business of financing the exploitation of women through coercive programs supported" by the U.N. population agency, Ruse said in a July 12 statement.

She pointed out that in July 2002 Secretary of State Colin Powell said the U.N. Population Fund's support of China's population planning activities "allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion."

As long as the U.N. agency "supports these barbaric policies imposed on families, it must remain ineligible for U.S. funding, period," said Ruse.

Gail Quinn, executive director of the pro-life secretariat, had asked committee members in a letter to oppose the amendment.

"Current federal policy ... reflects a broad international consensus among member nations of the United Nations" which have "condemned 'forced sterilization and forced abortion' as 'acts of violence against women,'" Quinn wrote.

---CNS