Trump Sends Funds Meant for Pro-Abortion WHO to Samaritan’s Purse, Red Cross to Fight Coronavirus

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 17, 2020   |   9:11AM   |   Washington, DC

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump halted federal taxpayer funding for the WHO, the international agency that has botched its response to the coronavirus.

WHO has been accused of lying to the world about the coronavirus, defending Chinese propaganda about its origins, and it has come under fire for saying killing babies in abortions is somehow an essential procedure as the world deals with the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. will halt monetary contributions to the World Health Organization while the administration reviews the mistakes it made managing the pandemic.

Now, president Trump has announced where the funds will be going instead — to two organizations fighting the coronavirus: Samaritan’s Purse and the Red Cross.

The White House budget office has told federal agencies to redirect World Health Organization funds to groups that do similar work, indicating a 60-day suspension of WHO funding ordered by President Trump will be permanent.

The funds will flow instead to outfits such as the Red Cross and Samaritan’s Purse after Trump said Tuesday the WHO needed reform after failing to vet coronavirus data from China, contributing to a pandemic that infected more than 650,000 US residents.

The US provided roughly 10 percent of the WHO’s $4.8 billion annual budget. Most US contributions were “voluntary.” Annual US dues were just $58 million, with the next installment not expected until September.

An administration official told The Post that efforts were underway to redirect “every single pot of money” from the WHO to other organizations. Large international relief organizations already are in many cases doing similar work, they said.

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The funding battle is likely not over, as Democrats will likely challenge Trump and attempt to stick WHO funding in future spending bills.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday vowed to challenge what she called Trump’s “illegal” suspension of WHO funds but did not specify how. The White House argues there’s no legal obligation to fund the WHO.

But White House officials defended Trump’s decision:

“If you pay a contractor to build you a house and the roof falls in, you don’t keep paying them, you find a new contractor,” the official told the Daily Caller. “WHO clearly failed to do its job, and continues to make serious mistakes that puts our nation’s safety and security at risk, including allowing the reopening of wet markets. It shouldn’t be controversial for the U.S. to want to partner with international organizations that will actually protect international health.”

China, who started the pandemic, ponied up a paltry $20 million,” a senior Trump administration official told The Post. “They refuse to pay even 3 percent into the world fund to respond to the virus that their own actions caused to spread rapidly outside of their country. That’s shocking and a disgrace.”

“With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible,” Trump said during his daily White House briefing where he announced the WHO funding cut.

“Our country will be forced to find other ways to work with other nations to achieve public health goals,” he said.

“The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet, and share information in a timely and transparent fashion,” he said.

The WHO received heavy criticism earlier this month when it falsely claimed abortion is considered an essential service during the coronavirus pandemic. It said that “services related to reproductive health are considered to be part of essential services during the COVID-19 outbreak.”

“Women’s choices and rights to sexual and reproductive health care should be respected, irrespective of whether or not she has a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection,” WHO said in the statement. Medical groups representing over 33,000 doctors disagree.

Meanwhile, United Nations leaders are pushing through a $2 billion spending plan for the coronavirus that includes funding to abort unborn babies in elective abortions based on WHO recommendations.

“Women’s choices and rights to sexual and reproductive health care should be respected irrespective of COVID-19 status, including access to contraception and safe abortion to the full extent of the law,” the WHO manual reads, after pointing out that there are no known complications related to pregnancy from the novel coronavirus.

Last week, a WHO staffer said the WHO has been working to ensure abortion drugs are considered “essential”during a webinar hosted by a pro-abortion journal. She praised abortion groups urging governments to designate abortion “essential.” She also promoted the WHO’s official view that where access to abortion is difficult, women should self-administer abortions.

America gives huge amounts of money to the United Nations. However, President Donald Trump and his administration have been pushing back aggressively against the United Nations’ pro-abortion agenda, insisting that countries support women and children, born and unborn.

In 2017, Trump stopped giving tax dollars to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because it pushes abortions on other countries and has worked with China for decades to implement its forced abortion population control policies. Trump renewed the order again in 2018 and 2019. The decision cut $32.5 million in funding from the UNFPA budget.

Still, it appears that more needs to be done. Abortion groups receive funding from many different sources, both government and private; and cutting off taxpayer funding to abortions entirely is not easily done. And while the Trump administration has been working to restore a culture of life at the United Nations, there are many other countries and activists trying to do the exact opposite.

There is nothing essential about aborting an unborn baby. Abortions destroy unborn babies’ lives and often put their mothers at risk. The world’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been to devote huge amounts of resources and sacrifice greatly to save human lives. If only society would make similar efforts to save babies in the womb.