ISOLATING THE DEATH MERCHANTS:

U.S. Is Accused of Trying to Isolate U.N. Population Unit: Pressed by abortion opponents, the Bush administration is seeking to isolate the U.N. Population Fund from groups that work with it, U.N. officials and diplomats say. (CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS, 6/21/04, NY Times)

The Population Fund, known as Unfpa, has long been a favorite target of abortion opponents in Congress and in religious-based organizations, who contend that it assists in coercive abortions in China. The critics prevented American financing of the fund for most of the last two decades, and they have now set their sights on curbing its operations with other United Nations agencies.

The administration's position has frustrated some United Nations officials and family planning advocates, who have complained that advances in education and awareness on reproductive issues are being undermined by the United States, where abortion is legal. Those critics, most of whom spoke anonymously because the United States government is the leading contributor to their agencies, charged that the administration was pandering to conservative supporters, and said that doing so placed the United States in alliance with tradition-bound Islamic countries and the Holy See.

Last year, the State Department cut financing to Marie Stopes International, a British charity involved in AIDS programs, because it worked with the Population Fund in China.

In a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Friday, four Democratic members of Congress demanded a legal explanation for withholding money from the fund and for the "threatened defunding of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund."

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat at the fore of efforts to restore support to the fund, said the administration was jeopardizing programs in women's and family health that should not be considered contentious.

"When will the president's right wing be satisfied - when they close down the U.N.?" she asked...