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May 13, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The World Health Organization has been all over the news recently thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, but how much do you actually know about the WHO?
In today’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Rebecca Oas from the Center for Family and Human Rights joins Jonathon to talk about the background of the WHO, their current work, and why pro-lifers should be leery of the programs they promote.
The Center for Family and Human Rights, C-FAM, focuses on how international institutions promote life and family and on how the debate around life and family is unfolding at the international level. Rebecca Oas is the Associate Director of Research for C-FAM and focuses on the research side of their work.
Watch the full interview:
Getting down to basics, the World Health Organization is the health arm of the United Nations. Since infectious diseases don’t respect borders, the idea is the WHO would facilitate information sharing and collaboration on widespread diseases to help save lives.
“As with any international institution, the problem [is] when it becomes politicized,” Oas tells Van Maren.
The WHO is funded by assessed contributions, required contributions from each country based on size and economic factors, and voluntary contributions. Voluntary contributions are beginning to account for more and more of the WHO’s overall budget as countries make voluntary contributions to push their own health agendas.
Van Maren shares the great example of smaller countries being forced to accept and promote programs that go against their morals in order to receive desperately needed health funding. We don’t see this as much in the U.S., Canada, and Europe because we have developed health systems, but many African countries rely on supplies and resources from the WHO for basic care.
There is currently no international consensus on the morality of abortion, only that in places where abortion is legal it must be “safe.” The WHO has begun to push the idea that not allowing abortion leads to “unsafe” abortions, and therefore, abortion should be legal everywhere.
Listen to the full interview:
“The World Health Organization, you know, it has interpreted this guidance not only to ensure that there are ways of doing it ‘safely,’ but they've also taken it upon themselves to issue policy guidance on, you know, basically the idea being that if you want to get rid of ‘unsafe’ abortion, the only alternative is to provide ‘safe’ abortion,” Oas tells Van Maren.
The essential medicine list published by the WHO, which is meant to serve as a list of essential medications, now includes abortion pills “where nationally appropriate.” Organizations then use this and other guidelines on abortion published by the WHO to get away with the distribution of abortion pills in countries where abortion is illegal.
Oas affirms the Trump administration’s decision to stop funding the WHO. She points out the fact that many of the policies being promulgated by the WHO, including their partnership with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, are outside of their mandated scope and are against U.S. foreign policy.
Oas does point out that it is important for the U.S. to continue to pay attention to the WHO and to engage in dialogue with them. The UN and the WHO have a significant presence and impact on countries worldwide, so staying engaged with the WHO’s policies and working to change the pro-abortion policies is important for pro-lifers.
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