PRI: Trump officials say the U.N. supports coercive abortion in China. But does it?
“In slashing $32 million of funding to the United Nations Populations Fund, also known as the UNFPA, earlier this month, the Trump administration slung a decade-old nefarious charge: The agency supports the coercive abortion of Chinese female fetuses. To many in China, this came as a surprise. ‘We regret this decision because the UNFPA was not helping Chinese women get abortions,’ said Mengjun Tang, a Beijing-based fellow with the China Population and Development Research Center and who has worked with the U.N. … The UNFPA also vigorously denied the accusation, with one senior official calling it ‘absurd.’ … But are coercive abortions still happening? Yes, but they are rare, it seems. … The UNFPA points out U.S.-led investigations in 2001 and again in 2017 into the agency’s work in China came to the same conclusion: The UNFPA doesn’t directly engage in forced abortion or sterilization…” (Asquith, 4/28).