EU Asks WHO to Give Radical Abortion Group Special Insider Status, Pro-Life Groups Oppose

By | January 25, 2024

GENEVA, January 26 (C-Fam) The European Union is pushing the World Health Organizations to enter into “official relations” with the global abortion law firm Center for Reproductive Rights. Africans and other traditional delegations oppose the move.

A decision to give the legal arm of the global abortion industry a special role within the international health body was expected Tuesday this week. It was postponed after pro-life groups alerted delegations of the group’s controversial advocacy for abortion and homosexual/trans issues.

The Center for Reproductive Rights’ application for official relations includes a proposal to assist in the drafting and dissemination of WHO sexual and reproductive health and rights standards and guidelines, including on abortion and homosexual/trans issues. The executive board of the international health agency, made up of the world’s health ministers, has been discussing the application all week.

Pro-life groups sent a letter to the Executive board of the World Health Organization asking health ministers to not give the world’s leading abortion law firm an official role and insider status within the international health agency.

“For thirty years, the Center for Reproductive Rights has been at the forefront of attempts to manipulate international cooperation to promote abortion as a human right,” the groups said accusing the abortion group of “subverting human rights law.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights argues that abortion is an international right even though no UN treaty mentions abortion, and UN member states have rejected a right to abortion in binding and non-binding agreements since the founding of the United Nations. They make this argument in national and international courts as well as international bodies and national legislatures around the world.

In recent years, the center has focused not just on the legal status of abortion, but on securing “access” to abortion and gender-affirming care. Recent legal briefs and submissions of the abortion law firm in the U.S. argue that doctors and medical providers do not have the right to refuse abortions or even gender-affirming care, including for minors and that insurance companies should be forced to pay for these procedures.

“Granting the Center for Reproductive Rights an official status within the WHO framework will undermine trust in global health and erode political support for the WHO from pro-life people everywhere,” the letter from Pro-life groups warns, adding that future U.S. pro-life Presidents will retaliate against the international health agency for violations of federal pro-life laws like the Helms Amendment, which prohibits the use of U.S. funds to promote or perform abortions, and the Siljander Amendment which prohibits abortion lobbying.

The pro-life groups also threatened that U.S. pro-life legislators would look at a decision to give abortion groups an official role within WHO as “evidence that the WHO is unreformable and as a further argument to withhold all funding to the organization.”

The designation of “official relations” is granted by the WHO to a select group of non-state actors, including non-profit institutions and private corporations. Once they enter in official relations with WHO they adopt a renewable three-year agreement that defines the scope of the relation. Organizations that receive this status have an official role in the workstream of the health agency. They are not merely provided access to UN premises and the opportunity to make statements as other organizations. They assist in the production of reports, publications, and guidance documents.

The WHO executive board may vote on the application tomorrow, Saturday, January 27, the last day of the current session. Given how controversial the groups is, a unanimous decision is unlikely this week. The executive board may decide to kick the can down the road and move the decision to their next meeting in an effort to reach a unanimous decision at a later date.

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