Where Ideology 
Doesn't Square With Reality

by Steve Hendrix for Washington Post

I'd never been so far from Capitol Hill in my life as I was three weeks ago- in a small concrete building in the middle of Mongolia's Gobi Desert. And yet I had never felt closer to the heart of a Capitol Hill debate.

Back in Washington, key Republicans were again holding up payment of our U.N. dues unless the Clinton administration agreed to restrict U.S. funds for any overseas population program that advocates abortion. Half a world away, the women's health clinic I was visiting in the bleak town of Umnugobi partly depends on such funding. In a country where abortion is legal and-sadly-has been the traditional family planning method of choice, clinics like this one are giving women welcome alternatives and are improving their medical, social and economic welfare. Even to someone passing through, like myself, it quickly becomes clear that restricting funds to these clinics will almost certainly drive more women toward unhealthy, unwanted pregnancies-and hence more abortions. It was a glimpse of how legislative deals can have unintended consequences in the real world.

I went to Mongolia to start work on a television documentary about archaeology. At my wife's urging-she is a public health professional- I joined a week-long tour organized by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) of several reproductive health projects around the country. UNFPA works with international organizations that carry out the nuts-and-bolts work of running these clinics, including some organizations-like International Planned Parenthood-that do so with U.S. funds.

With a desert sandstorm howling outside, almost a dozen women braved blistering grit to come to the Umnugovi clinic. Wearing the bright silken coats and high black boots of nomadic herders, the women lined up for some decidedly up-to-date medical services. Some had come for prenatal exams; others for their quarterly shot of Depo Provera, an injectable contraceptive. Still others-the youngest among them-were there merely for information: on birth control, on the risks of sexually transmitted disease, on the general turmoil of being a teenager that is much the f, same from Mongolia to Maryland.

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