OTTAWA, October 1, 1997 (HLI Canada), U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ), Chairman, House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, has exposed an ongoing project by at least three UN agencies “for the large-scale performance and promotion of abortions among refugees, displaced persons, and other poor and vulnerable women around the world.” The agencies named are United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and World Health Organization (WHO).
Rep. Smith stated that UNFPA and UNHCR are about to finalize an “Inter-Agency Field Manual” entitled “Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations.” A companion document by the WHO, also in the process of being finalized, announced that abortion pills and vacuum abortion devices should be provided not only in refugee camps but also in all primary health care centers. “These centers are the most basic facilities for the world’s poorest people—they are not typically staffed by doctors, they do not typically have penicillin or other basic drugs—but they will now have abortion equipment,” he said.
Rep. Smith charged that the UNFPA/UNHCR project would coerce health care providers who do not wish to become abortionists—“by imposing abortion as a requirement for them to keep their jobs.” He added : “The fact that the WHO, UNFPA and UNHCR need to use coercion and deception makes it clear that the effort to promote abortion among refugee women is driven by population- control ideology, and not by need or demand.”