(LifeSiteNews) – During the Obama administration, the U.S. coerced countries into accepting abortion or being silent on their pro-life and pro-family priorities by threatening to withhold foreign aid, a former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official during the Trump administration shared.
Valerie Huber, who was tasked with promoting life and family internationally under the Trump administration, explained to Alex Marlow on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily, “What I learned very quickly was that pro-life and pro-family countries around the world, large and small, were being intimidated and even threatened with withholding foreign assistance if they didn’t either stay quiet about the national priorities they had in the protection of life and family or change their policies and laws as a result.”
“What was really striking was that our own government was complicit with this under President Obama and I fear that the same is true under President Biden, where it appear[s] that U.S. diplomacy with countries abroad was really only focused on their social issues regarding the family and abortion,” she continued.
Huber has emphasized that not only do these coercive tactics infringe upon the “sovereign rights of nations to set their own policies,” but they contribute to the destruction of the family in those nations.
She also has pointed out that tactics of intimidation and “bully[ing]” of pro-life nations were used by international groups such as U.N. agencies, as well as other countries of the “global north.”
“Aid-providing countries in the global north — like countries that are part of the European Union, Canada, the U.S., particularly right now — they’re pretty aligned in promoting abortion, and kind of the destruction of the family,” she told Breitbart. “They’re not afraid to tie it to foreign assistance. U.N. agencies and the World Health Organization are very ideological on this, and they are using funds that are given by countries, including the U.S., to promote this agenda.”
Huber has previously explained to LifeSiteNews how agencies and national governments apply pressure to less wealthy pro-life nations by placing conditions on funding for health benefits like “adequate prenatal care,” or modern health facilities with trained staff, that include requiring the provision of abortions.
“They either had to give up their core values around protecting family, or they had to give up the opportunity to have these other important healthcare services. And I thought it was a really unconscionable choice that they were being asked to make,” Huber told LifeSiteNews.
According to Huber, the United States’ pressure to provide abortion carries extra weight, because it is the “largest funder for [health-related] foreign assistance.” This means that again under the Biden administration, “It’s a real game changer that the U.S. government is supportive of the abortion agenda,” which can be “can be accelerated pretty quickly as a result.”
In its “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality,” released October 22, the Biden administration declared its intention to “Defend the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion in the United States” and “promote access to sexual and reproductive health and rights both at home and abroad.”
While serving as former U.S. special representative for Global Women’s Health in the Trump administration, Valerie Huber was instrumental in facilitating the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which affirms that there is “no international right to abortion,” expressly defending the “inherent right to life” of “every human being.” It also promotes the “strength of the family” and reaffirms the sovereignty of nations.
The declaration was formed in opposition to international pressure to accept abortion as a “human right” and a key part of women’s health. President Joe Biden withdrew the United States from the declaration soon after taking office.
Congressional Republicans have recently introduced a resolution reaffirming several points of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, and rejecting Biden’s decision to remove the U.S. as a signatory.