EDITORIAL
Anti-abortion stance clouds global policy

At first blush, it sounds like a reasonable enough policy: The United States will not participate in, or support, any effort that "supports or participates" in coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.

This is language from a 1984 law that clearly had China in its sights.

But over the years this law has been broadly and unfairly interpreted to cut or reduce U.S. support for a vast array of important family planning efforts around the globe.

Most prominently, abortion foes are now targeting the United Nations Population Fund.

The fund's focus is on reducing global overpopulation through health education. It specifically does not support or promote abortion.

Still, the United States has cut off all contributions to the fund and has chopped support for related programs. The latest move, supported by the Bush administration, would stop financing for UNICEF and the World Health Organization because they cooperate with the fund.

This, on grounds that those agencies have limited contact and relationships with the Chinese government, which — it must be acknowledged — has had coercive abortion policies.

By cutting ties to these valuable programs, the United States isolates itself, on the basis of ideology, from potential solutions to the enduring threat of overpopulation.