Romney commits to defund United Nations Population Fund, Planned Parenthood

In a speech before CPAC Friday, Mitt Romney announced steps he would take against abortion, inluding cutting off federal funds to Planned Parenhood, if elected president.

“Mine will be a pro-life presidency,” he said. “On day one, I will reinstate the Mexico City policy. I will cut off funding for the United Nations Population Fund, which supports China’s barbaric One Child Policy.”

The Mexico City policy prohibits funding organizations that promote abortion in other countries.

UNFPA spokesman Omar Gharzeddine denied Romney's accusation that UNFPA promotes China's coercive family planning.

Gharzeddine said the UN Population Fund “promotes voluntary family planning and human rights in more than 150 countries, including China. It does not support coercion in family planning, coercive abortions or forced sterilizations anywhere in the world.”

He also said UNFPA “highly appreciates the political and financial support of the United States.”

But Jeanne Head, National Right to Life vice president for International Affairs, responded to KSL in support of Romney's claim: “There is no doubt that the United Nations Population Fund participates in the management of China's one-child population control policy which has resulted in countless forced abortions throughout the country. Sadly, right this very minute, the United States government is providing funding to the UNFPA.”

Congressman Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, also said he believes the UN Population Fund supports China's one child policy. He recently traveled to China to investigate and reported his findings before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in October.

China's “one child per couple policy is the most egregious systematic attack on mothers ever," he said before the House committee."Yet the UNPFA incorporates and defers to that policy in its programs.”

The Mexico City policy, also known as the "Global Gag Rule," was originally enacted by President Ronald Reagan, has been through a series of rescissions and adoptions in the past three decades — depending on the current US president's party affiliation. President Bill Clinton rescinded the policy; President George W. Bush adopted it again, but President Barack Obama, during his first week in office, rescinded it yet again.