Clinton: Release Family Planning Funds

President Clinton formally asked Congress on Friday to speed up its financing of overseas family-planning programs, setting up what abortion opponents call the first abortion-related vote in the new Congress. The vote must be held by Feb. 28.

In a report to Congress, the Agency for International Development said a delay in financing would result in a serious shortage of contraceptives in at least 60 countries, including 50 million condoms, 500,000 intrauterine devices and 4.8 million cycles of birth-control pills. It could also mean shutting down 17 of 95 overseas programs.

The consequences of delaying spending for another four months, as Congress decided last year, the report said, “would be increased unintended pregnancies, more abortions, higher numbers of maternal and infant deaths and, of course, more births.”