Russ Feingold: “Mr. President, yet again, the Senate is debating funding and restrictions on the international family planning account.…”

“Mr. President, yet again, the Senate is debating funding and restrictions on the international family planning account. In many ways it is a debate I cannot understand, for the supporters of this amendment are only ensuring that the incidence of abortion worldwide will increase, and that is a trend that would disappoint and trouble every single Member of this body. Mr. President, I rise to oppose strongly this amendment, that is, the amendment of the Senator from Kentucky, and to support Senator Hatfield's very reasonable and practical provision on population in the omnibus appropriations bill. My colleagues are all familiar with the difficult disagreements that have ensued this year over the U.S. population program. For months now, the Senate and House have lobbed amendments back and forth concerning what restrictions should be placed on family planning assistance in our foreign aid program. Unfortunately, as I have always argued, the debate in Congress has almost always been perilously miscast, as it is miscast again today. This is not, as some have portrayed it, a debate about a woman's right to abortion. The law has been on the books, Mr. President, since 1973, unchallenged, that U.S. assistance cannot be used to finance abortions. That is the law. That is the way it has been for 23 years. The problem we are addressing here is access to family planning services.”