Religious Right aims to block U.S. funding for population programs.

Religious Right groups have launched a lobbying offensive to slash funding for U.S.-supported birth control programs overseas.

Congress is scheduled to vote this month on funding for population control measures in developing countries. The Clinton administration has recommended upping the appropriation for international family planning programs by $123 million. Religious Right groups are determined to block the proposal in Congress.

Both Focus on the Family and its Washington ally, the Family Research Council, have urged members to blitz Congress with letters and faxes demanding a no vote on the aid, unless the funds are restricted to groups that do not provide abortion services. The Christian Coalition has also joined the crusade, identifying the vote as one of its most important early efforts in the 105th Congress.

Observers say the restrictions supported by the Religious Right are meant to hurt International Planned Parenthood and other organizations the Religious Right dislikes. Restricting aid to groups that do not even discuss abortion as an option means that the funds could end up flowing to religiously affiliated organizations or other militantly anti-abortion groups, many of which actively oppose the use of artificial contraception.

Roman Catholic groups that work overseas, for example, follow church dogma and condemn most forms of birth control except "natural" methods. In a Nov. 9 message, Pope John Paul II reiterated the church's ban on contraceptives, calling their use "hedonism." Artificial birth control methods, said the pope, contribute to "the wearing down of conscience and the eclipse of values."

The Religious Right's anti-birth control crusade comes at a time when world population continues to spiral. The Population Reference Bureau (PRB), a Washington-based non-profit group, recently issued a report indicating that world population is increasing by 1 billion people every 11 years, with 95 percent of that growth occurring in developing nations.

PRB data indicates that if current trends continue, world population, currently 5.8 billion, will be 8.1 billion by 2025., with 6.9 billion people living in less developed nations.

The organization says effective birth control education could slow the growth. Alene H. Gelbard, director of international programs at the bureau, told The Washington Times that women in developing countries often have more children than they want.

"It's not a question of convincing women to have fewer children or to space them so that they would have healthier children," she said. "It's a question of making sure that they know that there are means to do that."