Senate Appropriations Committee Approves Increase in U.S. International Family Planning Assistance

Washington, DC … Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a funding increase and important advances in the policies governing international family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) programs in adopting its version of the fiscal year 2009 bill funding the Department of State and U.S. foreign assistance programs.

The committee bill allocates a total of $475 million for the bilateral FP/RH programs of the U.S. Agency for International Development and an additional $45 million for a U.S. contribution to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). While not as large as the historic increases approved by its House committee counterparts on Wednesday, the higher levels signal the Senate's support for finding additional resources for these critical health services.

On UNFPA, the bill also includes language identical to that contained in the House bill that would allow funds to be provided to UNFPA and direct this assistance only to targeted projects such as safe child birth and emergency obstetric care, contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and the provision of maternal health services in disaster areas in one of the more than 150 countries — other than China — where UNFPA works.

Significantly, the Senate also included an amendment that would repeal the Mexico City Policy/Global Gag Rule, which renders ineligible for U.S. family planning assistance any foreign organization that provides abortion services, counsels or refers for abortion, or lobbies for abortion law reform with non-U.S. government funds. The House version of the bill is silent on the topic.

Whether the Senate bill will be debated on the Senate floor — or whether the full Appropriations Committee in the House will act on the subcommittee-passed bill — remain subject to election year politics and the dwindling number of days left in the congressional calendar. The passage of a continuing resolution to fund most federal government programs, including foreign assistance, in the absence of enacted appropriations bills after the start of the new fiscal year on October 1 is all but inevitable. Nevertheless, the proposed funding increases for international family planning in the two bills lay down important markers for when final action on the FY 2009 spending bills is completed early in the new year after the arrival of a new president and a new Congress.

###

Population Action International (PAI) works to ensure a world in which humanity and the natural environment exist in balance, fewer people live in poverty, and every person has the right and access to sexual and reproductive health.