The American response to Asia’s deepening economic crisis may be impeded by an unrelated but contentious political issue: abortion.
New U.S. financial support for the International Monetary Fund, the vehicle for bailout loans to beleaguered Asian nations, has become enmeshed in a long, bitter dispute over international family planning assistance.
Although the IMF does not involve itself in family planning policies–it only makes balance-of-payment loans to prop up foreign currencies–abortion opponents in Congress have seized on the Clinton administration’s requests for IMF financing as their latest lever to gain concessions on foreign aid policy.
Critics of the Asian bailouts on the political Left and Right also have been gearing up for a campaign against new IMF credits, further complicating chances for congressional approval.
The IMF bailouts have been the centerpiece of the U.S. response to Asian turmoil and are a key element in trying to restore order to volatile financial markets.
Abortion foes succeeded in the waning days of the congressional session last year in blocking a Clinton foreign policy funding package that included $3.5 billion for the IMF and $1 billion toward overdue payments to the UN.
Given the worsening situation in Asia, the administration is expected to ask for more than
$16 billion in credit for the U.S. share of increased IMF lending authority.
In exchange for their support on IMF, the abortion opponents are seeking reinstatement of Reagan and Bush administration policies banning U.S. assistance to any organization that lobbies a foreign government in favor of abortion rights.
They were among a set of anti-abortion foreign aid policies that Clinton reversed upon entering office.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Tuesday used a speech to a Washington think tank to lash out at the abortion linkage as “legislative blackmail.”
She said lawmakers already had created “a truly ridiculous” hindrance to U.S. foreign policy by refusing last year to pay UN debts while the U.S. was locked in a confrontation with Iraq.
“The victims of this act of legislative blackmail are the American people,” Albright said. “The failure to pay our UN debts undermined our leverage just as Saddam Hussein was challenging the authority of the Security Council, and it damaged our credibility just as the General Assembly was voting on a plan that could have reduced by roughly $100 million a year the amount we are assessed by the UN system.”
Some administration officials recently expressed cautious optimism about breaking the link with abortion policy and gaining passage of the IMF package.
But Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, said Tuesday, “It’s obviously going to be very difficult . . . I’m skeptical at this point about the linkage being broken.”
“Every session, this has been the intractable issue,” agreed an aide to a moderate Republican congressman closely involved with the debate. “It’s one the conservatives really want to win on and one Clinton is bound to stand up on, because of all the support he received from the pro-choice community.”
Joseph Rees, a foreign policy spokesman for Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), leader of the GOP anti-abortion forces, said they would drop the link to abortion policy only if convinced it was “essential to the national security or national economic health of the United States,” Rees said.
But, he added, “That doesn’t mean they can just gin up a scare . . . On the merits, there are a lot of reservations about IMF assistance.”
Conservatives fear IMF bailouts of foreign countries erode market discipline, allowing governments to put off fixing problems in their societies and encouraging banks to make reckless loans to Third World governments.
Liberals criticize the austerity packages the IMF requires foreign governments to adopt as a condition of assistance because they can cause job losses, overexploitation of environmental resources and political turmoil.
Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.) is kicking off a round of Capitol Hill briefings Wednesday designed to build opposition to the IMF funding package on policy grounds.
The administration wants to maintain the strength of the 182-nation IMF because it functions as the international lender of last resort.
Since July, the IMF has arranged rescue packages totaling $120 billion for Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia, using $32 billion of its funds.
