Press Release
Bush's Family Planning Blockade Criticized
Contact Information
Tony Hileman, Executive Director
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Washington, DC - July 22, 2002) “President Bush’s plan to withhold $34
million appropriated by Congress for the United Nations Population Fund is
an unconscionable and irresponsible cave-in to the Religious Right,”
American Humanist Association (AHA) president Edd Doerr said today.
AHA executive director Tony Hileman points out “Bush is following the lead
of conservative religious leaders opposed to freedom of conscience on
contraception and abortion, and has sought to limit international action on
population problems. This at a time when excessive population growth is
perpetuating and worsening misery and poverty and contributing to murderous
conflicts across the globe.”
Hileman continues, “The components of this program would provide abstinence
education, disease prevention information, gynecological services, and other
life saving initiatives. This would address the rapid population growth
which is threatening nonrenewable natural resources and humanity itself.”
“It is ironic,” Doerr adds, “for it was a previous Republican
administration, the Nixon-Ford administration, that in 1974 produced the
National Security Study Memorandum 200 report detailing the deleterious
effects of excessive population growth. It called for U.S. support for
universal access to appropriate family planning assistance. Regrettably,
special interests got the report classified and suppressed for nearly 20
years, during which world population grew by 50 percent.”
Doerr concludes, “Bush is underestimating the ability of individual women to
make the educated choices with information and wherewithal made available
through international programs such as those funded by the UN. Public
opinion should compel the Bush administration to release the $34 million to
the UN Population Fund.”
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The American Humanist Association is the oldest and largest Humanist organization in the nation. The AHA is dedicated to ensuring a voice for those with a positive outlook, based on reason and experience, which embraces all of humanity. | 
