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Sample Letter
This is a version of one of the original letters
that started the campaign. Please feel free to pass it on.
Dear Friends:
I am asking you to join in sending
a message from 34,000,000 American
women. The message will help
women living in countries where the lack of medical services
(not to mention the lack of other necessities that we take
for granted
every day) results in hardships beyond our imaginations.
The
US made a commitment of $34 million to the United Nations Population
Fund in the 2002 budget, with Congress
approving the funds and President
Bush signing the bill containing the appropriation. The Fund provides
family planning and reproductive health services to women in
142
countries. It has a budget of about $270 million worldwide and
does “invaluable work,” as Secretary of State Colin Powell said
during his confirmation hearings. The Fund’s programs help some
of the most impoverished and underserved women in the world.
Our country
reneged on its $34 million commitment to UNFPA in 2002, and has
withheld funding in 2003 and 2004, for
a total of $95 million. The reason given for refusing
to release the $34 million is that the Fund provides aid to Chinese
government agencies that force women to have abortions.
However,
a State Department fact-finding mission was sent to China in May
of 2002 to investigate exactly that
allegation. The mission reported
that it found no evidence that the program “knowingly supported
or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion
or involuntary sterilization” and recommended that the funds be
released. In addition, the Population Fund is barred by law from
using US money in China and, as a U.N. organization, from funding
any abortion related activities.
If 34,000,000 American women send
one dollar each to the U.N. Population Fund, we can help the Fund
continue
its “invaluable work” and at
the same time confirm that providing family planning and reproductive
health services to women who would otherwise have none is a humanitarian
issue, not a political one.
PLEASE, NOW: Put a dollar, wrapped
in a plain sheet of paper, in an envelope marked with “34 Million Friends.” If
you wish your gift to be acknowledged on the web address www.unfpa.org,
print your
name on the sheet of paper. Then mail it today to:
Americans for UNFPA
220 E. 42nd St. 28th floor
New York, NY 10017
EVEN MORE IMPORTANT: Send this letter on to at
least ten friends--more would be better-- who may join in this
message.
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