OF ALL the absurdities I observed during the Republican presidential convention in 2000, the most ridiculous was a big button worn by many female delegates, which proclaimed: "W stands for women."

What a joke -- now a cruel one that will kill thousands of women and children in 142 countries.

Tuesday, after seven months of maybe-yes/maybe-no, the Bush administration announced that it has withdrawn the State Department's proposed contribution of $34 million to the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA.

Despite ultra-conservatives' allegations, the fund does not provide or support abortion as part of its global medical and family planning services. What it does do is give millions of poor women gynecological care and contraception and prevent teen pregnancies and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

According to UNFPA's executive director, Thoraya Obaid, our $34 million would have prevented 2 million unwanted pregnancies and more than 77,000 infant and child deaths.

Long a proponent of the fund, Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress last year that the program's work is "invaluable" and "provides critical population assistance to developing countries." Which makes Powell's sudden flip-flop and tortured explanation for denying the fund nothing short of shameful.

In April and May, official government fact-finding teams from Great Britain and the United Sates travelled to China and found "no evidence that the (U.N. fund) has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in the PRC." But Tuesday Powell said China was the reason he "must" deny aid to every country that is served by the fund.

Chinese law, said Powell, imposes severe penalties upon its citizens if they violate the country's one-child-per-couple statute. Such threatened punishment often forces Chinese women to choose abortion or sterilization -- a practice that has been roundly condemned and never, never supported by the UNFPA.

U.S. law, said Powell, in the form of the Kemp-Kasten amendment of 1985, prohibits the United States from funding any entity that "supports or participates in the management or a program of coercive abortion."

But if the UNFPA doesn't engage in such coercive activities in China or anywhere else -- as the State Department's own investigators have determined -- why deny it our $34 million? Because, said Powell, the fund works with the coercive Chinese government, and that is enough to "trigger" Kemp-Kasten.

Said Powell: "Regardless of the the size of UNFPA's budget in China or any benefits its programs provide, UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion."

It's funny how aiding and abetting the Chinese government's abortion policies -- or any of its human rights policies -- never comes up when the question is whether to grant the country most favored nation trading status. It only matters when money is earmarked for contraception and health care for poor women.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Foreign Operations Committee, recognized Powell's flip-flop and twisted verbiage for just what it is: a sellout to the anti-abortion faction that donated and turned out big- time for Bush in 2000.

Calling the funding withdrawal "an embarrassment and a travesty," Leahy said it "flies in the face of the facts, of the law and of the intent of Congress."

And he added a sad-but-true observation that makes all those "W stands for Women" buttons seem even more absurd:

"In calculated pursuit of the politics of abortion, the White House has chosen a course that will mean more abortions."

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

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