http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/04/population_parley_told_bush_policies_hurt_women?mode=PF

Population parley told Bush policies hurt women
By John Daniszewski, Los Angeles Times  |  September 4, 2004

LONDON -- Organizations concerned with reproductive health and sex
education sharply criticized the Bush administration yesterday, saying that
its policies are contributing to the worldwide AIDS pandemic and the deaths
of women during childbirth and from unsafe abortions.

The criticism came on the final day of the three-day Countdown 2015
conference in London, which brought together about 700 representatives of
governments and nongovernmental groups from 109 countries to assess
progress toward the goals set 10 years ago at the UN conference on
population growth and development, held in Cairo.

The administration's denial of funding to groups such as the UN Population
Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the pressure
it has put on other countries to not cooperate with organizations that
advocate or provide access to legal abortion, have had a ''chilling effect"
globally, said Steven Sinding, federation director-general.

''In a reversal of its historic role, my own country has emerged as one of
the most significant obstacles to progress," said Sinding, an American.
''This insidious war on women's health and rights is threatening some of
the very real progress that has been made during the last decade."

Last month, the administration again blocked $34 million that Congress had
approved for the UN Population Fund, saying the organization supports
coercive abortions and forced sterilization in China. The fund has denied
supporting coercive abortions or forced sterilization anywhere.

Former senator Timothy E. Wirth, a Democrat who is president of the United
Nations Foundation, said that under the Bush administration, Washington has
failed to show leadership in the fight to increase access to reproductive
health programs and sex-education information, he said. ''The United States
has become in effect responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, in
fact millions, of women," he told a news conference in London.



© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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