WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., today introduced an amendment to stop taxpayer dollars from being awarded to a group complicit in China’s forced sterilization and abortion population control program.  The amendment was offered to the $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill being debated in the Senate this week.

Wicker’s amendment would restore the Kemp-Kasten anti-coercion population control provision.  Doing so would effectively stop $50 million in the omnibus bill from going to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an organization that supports China’s immoral one-child policy and coercive abortion and sterilization practice. 

“The United States must side with the women and children that have been victimized by China’s one-child policy,” Wicker said.  “My amendment will do just that.  By restoring the Kemp-Kasten provision that Democratic leaders have gutted in this bill, we can ensure that UNFPA is not assisting in coercive abortions in China with the help of U.S. taxpayer dollars.” 

First implemented in 1985, the Kemp-Kasten provision directs our government to ensure that no U.S. taxpayer dollars go to organizations that support or participate in the management of forced sterilization and forced abortion programs.

Despite over 20 years of the Kemp-Kasten policy being a fundamental component of U.S. foreign policy, the Democratic majority in Congress have inserted language into the omnibus spending bill that voids Kemp-Kasten.  The result will be an exemption for UNFPA, allowing them to receive U.S. taxpayer dollars while continuing their complicity in China’s human rights offenses.  

Votes on the Wicker amendment and the underlying omnibus spending bill are expected later this week.