Call it a double blow for the culture of death.

In a statement released in conjunction with his signing Friday of an executive order overturning the pro-life Mexico City Policy, President Barack Obama pledged to work with Congress to restore funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

U.S. funding of the U.N. agency —  which works in close collaboration with International Planned Parenthood Federation and other major abortion providers to promote its “reproductive rights” and population control programs — has been suspended for seven years because of UNFPA’s participation in China’s notorious “one-child” program of population control.

The Chinese population control program is known to involve coercive sterilizations and coerced abortions.

Late today, the Daily Blog contacted Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Council, about Obama’s bid to re-fund UNFPA.

The Population Research Institute sponsored an investigation in 2001 that documented abuses in the population control program operating in China’s Sihui County, with UNFPA’s support. The findings of that investigation are discussed in the Population Research Institute video embedded at the start of this post.

After the Population Research Institute disclosed what its investigation had unearthed, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell commissioned a State Department investigation of UNFPA’s involvement with China’s population control program.

On the basis of the findings of the State Department investigation, Powell requested Congress in 2002 to halt UNFPA’s funding.

Said Powell in a 2002 letter to Congress, “UNFPA’s support of, and involvement in, China’s population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.”

Mosher replied to the Daily Blog’s request by referring to the Population Research Institute’s statement in November urging Obama not to restore UNFPA’s funding.

“It would be a shame if Obama abandons both the women of China—and one of his most high-profile backers—in the name of the failed ideology of population control,” Mosher said in the statement.  “Americans don’t want their money going to an organization — the UNFPA — which works hand-in-glove with China’s population control police as they drag women off for forced abortions and forced sterilizations.”
— Tom McFeely