Aborting Birth Control
As a bill lifting an embargo
on money for international family-planning programs passed the Senate Tuesday,
Feb. 25, legislators congratulated themselves for their concern for poor women
and children in developing countries. They should hang their heads instead. The
bill, which passed the House earlier this month, authorizes far less than was
appropriated two years ago, proving again that, on both sides of the debate,
support for family planning takes second place to the controversy over
abortion.
This
year's congressional debate might seem like progress since both sides in the
abortion debate agreed on the fundamentals of family planning. Birth control
can improve health for women and children worldwide. Many women die each year
as the result of unsafe abortion, and women who have babies too close together
have a sharply increased chance of dying from postpartum hemorrhage. Babies
born too closely spaced or into large families are less likely to survive their
early childhood. In a report to Congress, the Clinton administration estimated
that with family planning, there will be 3 billion fewer people in the world in
2050 than without it.
Anti-abortion Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) concluded that
everyone agrees about the importance of birth control for the well-being of
developing countries. Even in the sharper House debate, there was no
substantial dispute that overpopulation strains natural resources, contributing
to environmental degradation, unemployment, and hunger. As Rep. Christopher
Shays (R-Conn.) said, "One mouth can eat, two mouths can share, four mouths
will sometimes go hungry, and eight mouths starve."
Even on the core issue of the
relationship of birth control to abortion, an observer from the House gallery
sometimes found it hard to tell who was on which side. In Hungary, Chile, South
Korea, Russia, and elsewhere, abortion rates have dropped sharply with the
increased availability of birth control. Since the illegal-abortion rate
remains high in countries where abortion is outlawed, contraception may be the
only effective way to bring abortion rates down.
"I think
our aim in humanitarian efforts ought to be to ... make the world
abortion-free," said Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who has devoted much of his 16
years in Congress to leading anti-abortion forces. But he added, "Family
planning certainly plays a part in that."
Yet, despite this apparent consensus, Congress
has cut birth-control funds deeply in the past two years. Abortion opponents
insist on saddling family-planning appropriations with restrictions that deny
funding to organizations that perform abortions or give abortion counseling.
These organizations are already prohibited from spending U.S. money on
abortion-related activities, but abortion foes argue that giving them money for
birth control will let them divert other resources to providing abortions.
Abortion-rights supporters argue that it would be inefficient to separate the
two activities in countries where abortions are legal. When President Clinton
refused to accept such restrictions in the 1996 and 1997 budgets, the House
leadership retaliated by threatening to slash and delay family-planning
appropriations. Rather than cave, the president took the cut.
The standoff cost
international population programs more than a third of their 1995 funding
levels. Furthermore, in both years, funds were embargoed until late in the
fiscal year. Five leading family-planning organizations calculated that as a
result of the cuts, 4 million more women will have unwanted pregnancies, of
whom 1.6 million will have abortions. Eight thousand more women will die during
pregnancy and childbirth (in part from unsafe abortions), and 134,000 babies
will die.
Yet,
despite Congress' action to lift this year's spending embargo, and the seeming
alignment of both camps behind birth-control programs, these programs are
likely to be seized hostage again in the abortion battle, for neither side
seems prepared to compromise.
Would Smith ever accept an unconditional release of money
for birth-control aid? The intensity of his floor remarks suggests not: "We
should not compartmentalize our view and say, 'If they do this with our money
that is OK, and who gives a darn what else they do with the rest of their
money.' Abortion is child abuse! It kills babies!"
Smith's decision this year to
push a measure in the House that would spend as much birth-control money as the
president asked might seem like progress. In one respect his bill was more
generous than the alternative that passed the Senate, in that it would release
the embargoed funds at a faster rate. But his opponents suspect that Smith's
was a cheap generosity, since he could count on the restrictions he demanded to
draw a presidential veto. Smith's press secretary, Ken Wolfe, boasts that by
offering that bill, "We have called their bluff."
For their
part, family-planning organizations and the Clinton administration seem equally
adamant. Susan Cohen of the Alan Guttmacher Institute explains that accepting
abortion restrictions would stymie efforts to set up effective family-planning
branches in the developing world. She says that in some countries where birth
control has been unavailable, almost all indigenous groups they can work with
have some abortion ties. Furthermore, even if complying with abortion
restrictions were feasible, "You just can't compromise on a principle." Not
even if it means accepting funding cuts that the Guttmacher Institute concluded
would lead to an increase in unwanted pregnancies, maternal deaths, and infant
mortality. "It's a very steep price," Cohen concedes.
And this month's votes are but a skirmish in
the crusades. Smith promises, "[T]his will be the beginning of a long fight
with the 105 th Congress on this. ... We will be back on the
authorizing bills, we will be back on the appropriations bills when the fiscal
1998 and 1999 funds come up, and again we are going to continue this 1997
effort as well."
Anti-abortion Congressman
Tony Hall (D-Ohio) points to the deep cuts in international family planning and
the angry battle going on around him and reflects, "In our effort to legislate
around here, sometimes we become purists, and we hurt the people we are trying
to help." We do indeed.
