Republicans are ready to shut down the government over Title X funds for Planned Parenthood, despite the fact that PP does not use federal funds for abortion. While that will curtail access to basic health services for millions of American women, Planned Parenthood isn't the only reproductive health organization that would be harmed. Republicans also want to eliminate funding for the United Nations Population Fund because they believe that like Planned Parenthood, the UNFPA funds abortions with taxpayer money.
Only as Mark Leon Goldberg explains, that's not true at all -- the UNFPA isn't even allowed to provide abortion services. Not only that, but while Planned Parenthood provides badly needed health services in the U.S., the UNFPA serves populations that are in considerably greater need of aid:
So we know what UNFPA does not fund. But what does it do? After the earthquake in Haiti, for example, the United States gave the UNFPA $1 million. Half of this money went to purchase and distribute “emergency birth kits” that included things like sterile sheets of plastic so women don't have to give birth on the ground; a razor and rope to cut the umbilical cord; and a bar of soap. Women were literally giving birth on the sidewalk. At least with these kits, they have a better chance of not dying while doing so. The other half of the money went to combat the epidemic of rape that was running rampant in displaced persons camps by installing solar powered lights near latrines and other places women gathered.
In non-emergency situations, the UNFPA's work is mostly focused on reducing maternal mortality in places like sub-Saharan Africa. This is accomplished by running programs that help women space their births more effectively and making sure that pregnant women have access to basic pre-natal care. To reduce deaths in the delivery process, UNFPA runs programs to train birth attendants.It is pretty basic, run of the mill stuff that makes a huge difference in communities around the world. “Saving women’s lives and saving the lives of their babies,” says UNFPA’s Sarah Craven. “That’s what we do.”
Goldberg calls trying to shut down the government over this "completely indecent." He's right. Trying to defund Planned Parenthood is bad enough, but trying to block funds to the UNFPA over this involves a whole other level of cruelty.
The fight over the UNFPA is an old one, however. As Michelle Goldberg (no relation) explains in her excellent book on the global battle over reproductive rights, The Means of Reproduction, conservatives have long spread false rumors of the UNFPA assisting countries like China or Serbia in coerced abortions that were later taken as gospel and used as ammunition against the agency. The politics of Planned Parenthood and the UNFPA are very similar, of course, because they basically have the same enemies.
