OTTAWA — The federal government needs to explain how it can exclude abortion from its G8 maternal and child health funding, and stay true to its principles not to dictate the terms of aid, opposition MPs say.

The government frequently says it is committed to giving aid to development initiatives led by recipient countries and communities. And it is proud of its record of untying aid from demands made by donor countries.

But that doesn't square with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's insistence that Canada's money won't go toward improving access to safe abortion, say opposition members of the Commons status of women committee.

They fear Canada's stand will lead to dying women in need of abortions being turned away from clinics that fear losing their Canadian funding.

"When you're in a small village in sub-Saharan Africa, you don't have four or five hospitals around," said Liberal MP Hedy Fry, who chairs the status of women committee.

Development organization Oxfam has a parallel concern. It worries that recipient countries will be forced into spending much of their aid money on setting up alternative bureaucracies to keep tabs on where the Canadian money is going.

"It isn't clear to me how they can make the assurances they're offering" to not fund abortion access, said Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada.

The language agreed to by all countries in the draft G8 communique supports aid for a range of health-care services, and does not exclude abortion, notes Fox.

But he, like the status of women committee members, has had no luck in getting the Canadian International Development Agency to explain how it can handle its competing principles.

"I'm perplexed myself."

Ottawa is ready to commit at least $1 billion to the project, and other countries are also putting substantial money on the table.

But CIDA has not made public many details on how its so-called Muskoka Initiative will be structured.

"We intend to focus our efforts on areas where we believe we can have the most impact and save the lives of the most mothers and the most children," said Jessica Fletcher, spokeswoman for International Development Minister Bev Oda.

"Within the scope of this G8 initiative, countries will be able to identify their own priorities."

The maternal health initiative has been riddled with controversy and partisan bickering over abortion, from the get-go.

The status of women committee released its report on maternal and child health Thursday, recommending that Ottawa put $1.4 billion toward maternal and child health in poor countries, over five years.

They also recommended that the money be allowed to flow to a continuum of health-care services for women, including abortion in countries where it is legal.

But the recommendations immediately exploded into bickering between Conservatives and opposition members. Conservatives didn't table a dissenting opinion on time to be included in the official report, and refused to show up to Thursday's news conference.

The report, backed by the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois, said Ottawa should put $1.4 billion toward maternal and child health at the G8 summit, and the funding should include access to safe abortion.

The opposition MPs accused the government of indiscriminately imposing its ideology on the world's most vulnerable.

"It's a violation of human rights that the government is undertaking," said Bloc MP Johanne Deschamps.

The Conservative response, tabled later, said the committee had no business telling the government what it should spend. And it accused the committee of politicizing the hearings to distort the results.

The Conservatives on the committee suggested the government should focus its maternal health spending on nutrients and training health-care workers.

Unsafe abortion is a major cause of disability or even death in developing countries.

Research by the World Bank shows that about 68,000 women die every year because of unsafe abortions, and 5.3 million are temporarily or permanently injured.

In poor countries where abortion is restricted or illegal, deaths from unsafe abortion practices account for up to 25 per cent of maternal deaths.