ABSTRACT
In 1985 the population and family planning program in Bangladesh catapulted into controversy at the highest policy-making levels in Washington, D.C., and West European capitals. For many years, family planning programs in Bangladesh and other developing countries were strongly supported by a decided constituency of U.S. government policy-makers. From other Washington, D.C., policy-makers, the subject had evinced only dreary ho-hums; many of the latter, were not much interested in either Bangladesh or family planning and often dismissed the country as a hopeless basketcase anyway. In 1985, however, many Congressmen and others became understandably concerned about charges that the major U.S.-funded foreign aid donors to the Bangladesh family planning program—the United States Agency for International Development (A.I.D.), the World Bank, and the United Nations Fund for Population Assistance (UNFPA)—supported policies that were coercive, even illegal, and that fundamental human rights were being violated by the Bangladesh program.
