President Donald Trump’s administration continued to fight this week against international agencies’ attempts to push abortions during the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday, the United States delegation to the World Health Organization (WHO) rejected language in a new coronavirus resolution that promotes abortions as health care, CNS News reports.
“We do not accept references to ‘sexual and reproductive health,’ or other language that suggests or explicitly states that access to abortion is included in the provision of population and individual level health services,” the delegation said in a statement. “The United States believes in legal protections for the unborn.”
Twice, the WHO resolution tells member states to support “sexual and reproductive health” during the pandemic. And it is clear from earlier WHO documents and statements on the pandemic that it includes elective abortions under “sexual and reproductive health,” according to the report.
The delegation said the United States strongly supports women’s health care, but the “sexual and reproductive health” language often is used by abortion activists to pressure pro-life countries to legalize the killing of unborn babies in abortions.
“As President Trump has stated, ‘Americans will never tire of defending innocent life.’ Each nation has the sovereign right to implement related programs and activities consistent with their laws and policies, free from external pressure,” their statement said. “There is no international right to abortion, nor is there any duty on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion.”
The resolution passed by consensus after the U.S. delegation stated its objection to the pro-abortion language, Reuters reports. The delegation praised the broader resolution, which calls for an investigation into the WHO response to the coronavirus.
Just hours earlier, Trump threatened to leave the WHO and fully cut off its funding. In April, the president halted funding to the WHO, saying the international agency botched its response to the pandemic. The WHO also faced heavy criticism earlier this spring when it falsely claimed abortion is an essential service during the pandemic.
“I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America’s interests,” Trump told the WHO in a letter. He also criticized the agency for an “alarming lack of independence” from the Chinese government.
Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram for pro-life pictures and videos.
According to Reuters, China President Xi Jinping pledged $2 billion to the WHO around the same time Trump warned about quitting the agency.
On Monday, the Trump administration also slammed the United Nations for trying to “intimidate” pro-life countries into legalizing abortion on demand with coronavirus aid funds.
The “unprecedented” criticism came in a letter from U.S. Agency for International Development acting administrator John Barsa to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to C-Fam.
“The UN should not intimidate or coerce Member States that are committed to the right to life,” Barsa wrote. “To use the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification to pressure governments to change their laws [on abortion] is an affront to the autonomy of each society to determine its own national policies on health care. The United States stands with nations that have pledged to protect the unborn.”
Last week, Ecuadoran political and pro-life leaders complained about the UN using coronavirus aid money to pressure it to legalize the killing of unborn babies in abortions. Ecuador protects unborn babies’ right to life.
“[T]he UN should not use this crisis as an opportunity to advance access to abortion as an ‘essential service,’” Barsa wrote. “… Most egregious is that the Global HRP calls for the widespread distribution of abortion-inducing drugs and abortion supplies, and for the promotion of abortion in local country settings.”
He noted how the UN plan puts abortions “on the same level of importance as food-insecurity, essential health care, malnutrition, shelter, and sanitation.”
America gives huge amounts of money to the United Nations. However, Trump and his administration have been pushing back aggressively against the UN’s pro-abortion agenda, insisting that countries support women and children, born and unborn. Starting in 2017, Trump stopped giving tax dollars to the United Nations Population Fund, which promotes abortions.
Recently, medical groups representing more than 30,000 doctors in America emphasized that abortions are not “essential” or “urgent,” and abortion facilities that continue to operate during the pandemic are being “medically irresponsible.”
