US President Bill Clinton wants an increase of more than $200m for domestic and international family planning programmes in his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2001.

"We all agree that we want to save lives, help women and children stay healthy and empower families to take responsibility for their own choice," President Clinton said in his weekly radio address.

"Supporting reproductive health and family planning is one of the very best ways to do that."

Education

In the budget he will send to Congress next month, the president said he would increase spending for domestic family planning and reproductive health care by $35m, or 15%.

He said the budget would include a total of $274m for family planning programmes at clinics and community-based health services that reach more than 5 million women and their families.

The money could be used to make contraceptives available, help screen for disease, provide counselling and "support education programmes that encourage young people to postpone sexual activity," said the president.

For international family planning programmes, President Clinton said he would seek an additional $170m, a 45% increase over the 2000 budget.

"I am asking Congress to support these funds, and to provide them without restrictions that hamper the work of family planning organisations and even bar them from discussing or debating reproductive health politics," the president said.

Abortion fears

The fight for funding international family planning funds is always a tough one for the president, since many in Congress believe the money can end up going to programmes that support abortion.

"By making sure women have family planning choices, we are helping to make abortion more rare," the president said.

As part of a deal to get Congress to release $926m in back payments to the United Nations last year, the Clinton administration reluctantly accepted restrictions on $385m of federal funds for groups that perform abortions, or lobby for liberalised abortion laws internationally.