Today, the senate defeated an amendment by Sen. Wicker to the 2009 Omnibus bill to prevent funding from going to the United Nations Population Fund. A bit of background- the US did not fund UNFPA under the Bush administration (even though we can previously pledged to fund our part) because the administration supposedly objected to what the UNFPA was doing in China with coercive abortions. The only problem? The UNFPA was actually actively working against coercive abortion in China.

Under the Democratic congress and the Obama presidency, the international family planning community was eager to see this change. UNFPA provides valuable resources to women around the world, and through its provision of family planning services actually prevents unintended pregnancies, and therefore many maternal deaths and unsafe abortions. Happily, the Obama administration and the Democratic congress agreed, and funding for UNFPA was included in the 2009 omnibus bill (at about 50 million dollars, which does not nearly make up for all the pledged money we did not give in the past 8 years)- with restrictions.

Even with our funding of UNFPA restored, the US is still the only funder of UNFPA (other funders are other countries) that puts restrictions on where our money goes and how it is used. Furthermore, since 1973, the Jesse Helms Amendment has made it extremely clear that not one dollar of U.S. money is to ever go to abortions in other countries (regardless of legality) - NOT.ONE.DOLLAR. EVER. So, Sen. Wicker's argument that funding UNFPA leads to funding mass coercive abortions in China was basically just a lie that would have prevented valuable resources from reaching people who need them.

Thank God the Senate defeated it. Now let's get down to actually helping young women.