HHS reports that Secretary Becerra attended the G7 health ministerial in Nagasaki and in his remarks “emphasized the urgency of strengthening access to essential health services, including through primary health care, and the urgency of advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
Becerra agreed to the G7 Nagasaki Health Ministers’ Communiqué which promotes access to abortion using the context that as the world transitions away from COVID-19 the achievement of universal health coverage is needed with primary health care as the “cornerstone”. The leaders lament that some countries experienced a disruption in essential health services during the pandemic including in sexual and reproductive health. WHO included “comprehensive abortion care” in its list of essential health care services during COVID-19.
In the section, “Maternal and child health, and comprehensive SRHR”, the health leaders commit to “take steps collectively to ensure universal access to comprehensive health services at every stage of life, including maternal and child health and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services for all”. They recommend the “broadest approach to advancing comprehensive SRHR for all” which they state includes addressing access to abortion and SRHR advocacy.
Becerra and the other leaders opppose pro-life gains which they refer to as “rollback” and commit to advance abortion at the primary health care (PHC) level and as UHC:
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“As part of these wider efforts to defend and promote SRHR in the face of attempted rollback, we will advocate for the inclusion of the comprehensive SRH services as an essential part of UHC at the PHC level.”
The health ministerial also adopted the G7 Global Plan for UHC Action Agenda which includes committing to accelerate collective action “towards the realization of universal health coverage (UHC)”. Becerra committed to “advocating for and support creating enabling national legislative frameworks that build safe, equitable and resilient health systems that include sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
A key G7 Action to support gender equality in health is to “take steps to ensure gender-responsive policies and health services, including universal access to reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for all”.
The Global Plan makes a cloaked reference to Dobbs and the multilateral pro-life work of the Trump administration: “Given the well-coordinated and funded rollback on gender and rights movement at country and multilateral levels, the G7 will step up our efforts to work together on promoting SRHR and explore ways to assess the impact on sexual and reproductive health services and rights.”
LifeNews.com Note: Marie Smith is the director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues.
