DATE: Tuesday, November 18, 1997            TAG: 9711180016
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   51 lines

UNITED NATIONS DUES AND DON'TS AN IDEOLOGICAL VOTE IN CONGRESS COMES AT THE WORST MOMENT IF BUILDING A COALITION IS THE GOAL.

Congress went home for the year in a flurry of ideological grandstanding and political pandering. At least one questionable act could undercut national security at a risky moment.

A handful of Republican zealots in the House refused to permit the United States to begin paying its United Nations arrears because of discontent over family-planning funds.

Abortion foes in Congress have long complained that some of this aid to some Third World countries could wind up paying for abortions rather than less controversial family- planning activities.

Despite safeguards, it's possible. After all, money is fungible and it can be argued that family- planning aid that helps finance birth control or clinics actually underwrites the cost of abortions even if it doesn't pay for them directly. But that logic could be used to argue against any aid at all.

Eliminating any family-planning aid through the United Nations may be the real goal of some members of Congress. Campaigning for domestic support from anti-abortion foes may be another motive.

But much of the world faces tragic population problems. United Nations programs to address the issue are needed badly and are not tantamount to the export of abortion, as critics contend.

This debate will continue. But it shouldn't be allowed to overwhelm the larger issue of United Nations support. Particularly at a crucial juncture. The United States has called on the United Nations for fiscal reform, and steps are being taken. But the United States is also calling on the United Nations for support in stopping Saddam Hussein from breaking the shackles that contain him until he is in compliance with U.N. resolutions regarding his weapons program.

The timing for a refusal to pay U.N dues over an ancillary issue couldn't be worse. And if abortion foes are really concerned with the risk to innocent lives, Saddam's chemical and biological weapons programs ought to alarm them at least as much as alleged diversion of family-planning funds to abortions.

By refusing to authorize the payment of U.N. dues, Congress has given craven members of the United Nations a reason to refuse to back the United States at a time when a unified response to Saddam is needed.

The same vote also denied funding for the International Monetary Fund. That is significant at a time of troubled monetary systems and reeling stock markets in Asia and Latin America. A few members of Congress, acting out of ideological conviction on a single issue, are making mischief on an international scale.

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