Biden Administration and UNFPA Denounce Dobbs Ruling at D.C. Event

By | July 15, 2022

Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 15 (C-Fam) The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a national right to abortion was foremost in everyone’s mind at an event launching the UN Population Fund’s latest flagship report.

Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, gave opening remarks in which he accused the Supreme Court of “doing something unconscionable,” leaving women unable to obtain abortions and “health care providers afraid to do their job, to fulfill their Hippocratic Oath.”  He went on to discuss the measures his department is taking to ensure maximum access to abortion despite state-level restrictions coming into effect following the court’s ruling.

Interestingly, the Hippocratic Oath in its original form includes a promise to “not provide a ‘remedy’ that causes an abortion.”

Becerra’s spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center launch of UNFPA’s 2022 State of World Population report published earlier this year.  The report focuses on unintended pregnancy. The report states it “is not a report about abortion,” but rather “about the circumstances that exist before an unintended pregnancy.”

Also speaking at the launch was Democrat Representative Chrissy Houlahan, who pointed to her “Support UNFPA Funding Act” in Congress.  She mentioned that her bill has support from 99 civil society organizations, including the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and numerous other abortion groups.

Discussing the UNFPA report itself, Gilda Sedgh, who was an advisor on the report and previously worked for the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, admitted an important fact about “unmet need” for family planning, which UNFPA has pledged to entirely eliminate.  “In the ‘80s, most women who weren’t using a method…said they didn’t know about contraceptive options,” she said.  “That was the most common reason, now it’s the least common reason.”

“Now women’s barriers to using a method have to do with their concerns about the methods themselves and their side effects.”

The issue of abortion and the Dobbs decision resurfaced immediately as the host began the question-and-answer.

Sedgh noted that the U.S. is a global leader and “influencer” and noted that “conservative movements in other countries will be emboldened by this decision.”  She mentioned the recent World Health Organization abortion guidance promoting self-induced and telemedicine abortion. “The U.S. is moving in one direction, and the evidence-based guidelines are moving in another.”

On the humanitarian side, Gayatri Patel from the Women’s Refugee Commission said that abortion and contraception are not given enough priority in crisis settings, and “the United States regressing on a constitutional right to abortion will have a chilling effect on programs that are already underfunded and under-prioritized in some of the most dire circumstances around the world.”

One audience question pointed out that the indicator of unintended pregnancy has been used for decades as “a way to measure the effectiveness of family planning programs” and wondered whether more context would be helpful.  Panelists acknowledged that “unintended” is not the same as “unwanted” and noted that many “unintended” pregnancies lead to children who are very much accepted and loved.

As to the effectiveness of family planning programs as seen through the lens of unintended pregnancy numbers, the UNFPA report’s central finding that almost half of all pregnancies are unintended suggests that the basic link between sexual activity and pregnancy remains intact.

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