A little-known United Nations agency has gotten caught in a political fight, and overburdened women of the world are the ultimate losers. The Bush administration has reversed course and cut off $34 million it had earlier approved for birth control in 142 countries. It cited a 1985 law that bars funds to any international organization that “supports or participates in the management” of forced abortion or sterilization. The administration said United Nations Population Fund aids Chinese government agencies that enforce China’s one-child policy and thus promote forced abortion.

But the reasoning behind that reversal turns out to be murky. Secretary of State Colin Powell, at his confirmation hearing last year, praised the agency for its “invaluable work.” And a State Department fact-finding mission in May found “no evidence” that the program “knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The report recommended releasing the $34 million. The fund’s annual budget of $270 million worldwide includes only $3.5 million for China. That money goes for programs in China including a book on women’s reproductive health, information on women’s rights under UN human rights treaties, and training family-planning workers on quality care and informed consent. The team found that Chinese authorities, indeed, were coercing abortions. But by law, no U.S. funds at all can be used in China for any purpose. And in China and elsewhere, the rate of abortion has decreased where the Fund has worked.

Despite all that, a pressure campaign by social-conservative groups including the Population Research Institute won out, with inside help from Jay Lefkowitz, the White House domestic policy advisor, and Tim Goeglein, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, and the overall encouragement of Karl Rove, the conservative political adviser at the White House, known for putting politics ahead of policy or principle. The anti-abortionist lobby and the folks who would take any stick to beat China with have won – for the present. To get back at China, they are depriving women in other countries of birthing kits and contraceptives and access to midwives and hospitals. All as a sop to the domestic right-to-life lobby,

The fight is not over. Senate Democrats are pressing for the release of the entire task force report and restoration of the $34 million by including it in the annual foreign aid bill. A lot will depend on the signals voters send by their choices in the November election.