The UN Population Fund and the Culture of Life

Since we're on the topic of the UN, here's a recent NYT column by Nicholas Kristof titled, "Mr. Bush, This is Pro-Life?"  An excerpt:

Mr. Bush and other conservatives have blocked funds for the U.N. Population Fund because they're concerned about its involvement in China. They're right to be appalled by forced sterilizations and abortions in China, and they have the best of intentions. But they're wrong to blame the Population Fund, which has been pushing China to ease the coercion - and in any case the solution isn't to let African women die. . . . Pregnant women die constantly here because they can't afford treatment costing just a few dollars. Sometimes the doctors and nurses reach into their own pockets to help a patient, but they can't do so every time.

. . . . Somewhere in the world, a pregnant woman dies like that about once a minute, often leaving a handful of orphans behind. Call me naive, but I think that if Mr. Bush came here and saw women dying as a consequence of his confused policy, he would relent. This can't be what he wants - or what America stands for.

My colleague Elizabeth Brown asks:

Since the cutting off of this funding is frequently cited as one of President Bush's major acts in support of the culture of life, shouldn't the supporters of the policy have to show that it has in fact done something concrete to save lives rather than be merely a symbolic gesture which imposes real harms on women and children in other countries?  To date, the US has denied about $125 million to the UNPF and has not provided this amount of money to other programs that offer a similar range of medical services (excluding abortion) for pregnant women and young children that the UNPF offers.  If President Bush wants to claim credit for this policy as supporting a culture of life, doesn't he have to show that the denial of funding has prevented more abortions and deaths from complications from abortions than the lives lost due to stillbirths and deaths in childbirth which are occurring because the UNPF didn't receive the $125 million from the US to pay for the medical programs that would have prevented these deaths?