U.S. to withhold U.N. family planning funds

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan defends the work of the U.N. Population Fund as essential in developing nations.

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department has announced it plans to withhold $34 million earmarked for U.N. family planning programs after learning of what it called "coercive" abortion policies in China.

"While Americans have different views on the issues of abortion, I think all agree that no woman should be forced to have an abortion," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.

"After careful consideration of the law and all the information that's available ... we came to the conclusion that the U.N. Population Fund monies go to Chinese agencies that carry out coercive programs."

U.S. officials and anti-abortion activists have said the agency supports forced abortions and sterilizations in China.

China denies the charge that its one child policy is anything more than encouragement.

"The government policy has been very clear that we encourage family planning, encourage people to have one child, one family. But this is encouragement, not coercion," embassy spokesman Xie Feng told reporters in Washington Monday.

Boucher said that "funds for family planning and reproductive health will be spent through U.S. Agency for International Development programs and not through the U.N. Population Fund."

"The $34 million that we have for the U.N. Population Fund, with the approval of Congress, will be spent on population programs under [the U.S. Agency for International Development's] Child Survival and Health Program Fund."

A spokesman for the U.N. Population Fund, Sterling Scruggs, said, "I know that we are not supporting coercion -- I can't believe that anyone would think that we were."

He added, "No one denies that there are problems in China, but we are working with the Chinese government to bring their programs into conformance with international human rights standards."

Scruggs said the $34 million in U.S. funds could have prevented 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 material deaths, 1,000 infant and child deaths and an untold number of new cases of HIV.

U.N. leader critical of Bush administration decision

Before the official U.S. announcement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the U.N. Population Fund does "very essential work."

"We have made it clear that it does not go around encouraging abortions," Annan said. "It does give good advice to women in the area of reproductive health and does very good work around the world, including in China."

Annan said he hopes the Bush administration will reconsider its decision "when the facts become clearer."

A U.S team that went on a fact-finding mission to China said it found no evidence of a U.N. link to forced sterilization or abortion. A British delegation also went to China this year and found no evidence that funds were being used for that purpose.

"I am confident that the results will reveal that [the U.N. Population Fund] is doing very professional work and giving lots of help to women in this critical stage in the developing areas particularly," Annan said, "not only in areas of health and reproduction but the whole area of being able to take care of themselves and to protect themselves in days when we are being confronted with all sorts of epidemics and diseases."

The U.S. funding represents about 12.5 percent of the U.N. Population Fund's budget.

Annan said some of the agency's work will have to be cut and its efforts in China and other parts of the world would be affected.

The United Nations will look for other donors to pick up the shortfall.

"We do not want women, particularly poor women, around the world to suffer, so we are going to do whatever we can to try and bridge the gap until such time that the U.S. position changes," Annan said.

Annan has spoken to U.S. officials about the issue in the past and said he hopes he could persuade them to release the money in the next budget.

-- CNN's Liz Neisloss contributed to this report.