New U.S. Human Rights Reports Classify State-Funded Abortion as Human Rights Violation

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WASHINGTON, D.C. November 28 (C-Fam) Starting next year, the annual U.S. human rights reports on other governments will include criticism of state funded abortions, transgender procedures for minors, and restrictions on freedom of speech.

Since the 1970s, the U.S. Department of State is required by law to generate annual reports on the human rights situations in each UN member state.  However, what the reports contain have become contested political issues in recent years. The understanding of human rights has diverged greatly between Republican and Democrat administrations.

During the Obama administration, the reports included a section on “reproductive rights” due largely to lobbying by the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights.  This section was deleted during the first Trump administration, reinstated under Joe Biden, and then removed again under President Donald Trump in his second term.

This latest announcement by the State Department, however, marks an important change. The Trump administration is not merely removing controversial issues but going on offense.

In years past, the Trump administration, not considering abortion a human right, would merely remove the section on “reproductive rights.” Now they will take a strong pro-life position and call attention to the human rights violation of state-funded killing of the unborn. This marks a significant change for an administration that has come under fire from pro-lifers for lenient policies on in vitro fertilization that inevitably takes the lives of human embryos.

There are more controversial changes in the realm of social policy. Under President Obama, the reports first began to include “sexual orientation and gender identity.”  These were scaled back but still included in Trump’s first term and in the new reports will be removed entirely.  But more significantly, yet again going on offense, the reports next year will criticize governments for, in the words of the State Department, facilitating the “mutilation of children.”

Other new sections in the reports include criticism of using overly broad governmental hate speech laws to restrict freedom of speech. This echoes the sharp criticism leveled against European governments last year at the Munich Security Conference by Vice President J.D. Vance.

The new reports will also criticize violations of human rights that can come with the use of affirmative action laws or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in hiring decisions. The reports will also criticize the facilitation of mass migration, and coercive euthanasia.

State Department officials have said that the reports focus on human rights as “given to us by God, our creator, not by governments.”  This is consistent with the founding documents of the U.S., including the Declaration of Independence, and also with the international human rights treaty obligations undertaken by the U.S.

During the first Trump administration, the State Department convened the Commission on Unalienable Rights, where scholars discussed the U.S.’s understanding of human rights and pushed back on the proliferation of novel “rights” claimed by activists without any international consensus.  The commission received strong pushback—and even lawsuits—from abortion and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups and was repudiated by the Biden administration.

The same groups have expressed outrage over the new State Department announcement. Amnesty International USA’s advocacy director called the announcement a “shift away from universal human rights towards elusive and undefined ‘natural rights.’”

Pro-life advocates welcomed the announcement.  Raimundo Rojas of National Right to Life wrote that the cable sent to all U.S. embassies “delivers precise instructions that stir deep gratitude in pro-life advocates everywhere.”

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