GENEVA, Switzerland, May 25, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The Trump administration rebuked the international abortion consensus this week, stating that abortion “should in no case be promoted as a method of family planning.”
The U.S. delegation issued this statement at the World Health Assembly in Switzerland, criticizing recent efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote abortion. The delegation expressed “deep concern” at the priorities of the world’s preeminent health entity.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar led a U.S. delegation to the 71st World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva. His remarks focused on the event’s stated business of Ebola assistance and other health challenges, but the delegation also issued a statement challenging the World Health Organization’s (WHO) promotion of abortion via its Human Reproduction Program.
“We remind our fellow delegates that the International Conference on Population and Development forged international consensus that abortion should in no case be promoted as a method of family planning,” it said, according to a press release by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Global Outreach (MCCL GO).
“The United States remains a stalwart defender and donor to maternal and children’s health, life, and wellbeing. And we will never waiver on that support,” the U.S. statement added.
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Kevin Moley was reportedly instrumental in ensuring that the delegation took a pro-life stance at the meeting.
This week’s statement seems to be a direct rebuke to statements such as WHO researchers’ declaration last year that women seeking to “avoid pregnancy […] will need family planning services such as contraception and access to safe abortion,” and that “barriers to access, availability, utilization and readiness of contraception, abortion and post-abortion services” should be reevaluated.
“There has been a growing activist trend at WHO encouraging the legalization of abortion worldwide,” MCCL GO executive director Scott Fischbach said. “We applaud the Trump administration for this pro-life statement.”
The stand is the latest of several President Donald Trump’s administration has taken to advance the right to life on the world stage.
One of Trump’s first moves in office was to reinstate and expand the Mexico City Policy, forbidding billions in foreign aid money from being distributed to organizations involved in abortions. United States Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Mark Green continues to defend that policy before critics.
In March, USAID adviser Bethany Kozma told a private meeting of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women that the “US is a pro-life country,” and as such wanted the commission’s final report to replace “modern contraception” with “family planning” that included abstinence education.
The next month, State Department ambassador Michael Kozak declared that abortion is “not a human right” and that the administration considers international contraception “access” to be a non-issue. America’s delegation to the UN has also resisted efforts to recognize a “right” to abortion under international law.