U.S. Faces Major Pro-Life Test at UN

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

UNITED NATIONS, December 5 (C-Fam) The Trump administration faces its biggest international pro-life test to date. Next week, UN member states are expected to adopt a UN resolution that guides the UN system’s humanitarian operations. The resolution has abortion-related language.

Since the first Trump administration, there has been a clash between Europeans and the Trump administration about whether UN humanitarian programs to help women in wars, natural disasters, and other emergencies should include abortion and gender ideology. Europeans are in favor of it. The Trump administration has voiced strong objections in the past.

The humanitarian omnibus resolution is adopted annually to reconfirm and refine the mandate of the UN system in humanitarian emergencies. For over a decade, the resolution has included language on sexual and reproductive health. The UN system widely interprets this to include a right to abortion and gender ideology in humanitarian emergencies. Humanitarian emergencies have become the test case and the battleground for the abortion industry to gain an international right to abortion.

All major UN reports on humanitarian operations list abortion as an essential health service or a humanitarian right. The manual used by UN agencies to implement the mandate stemming from this resolution promotes abortion as a right in humanitarian assistance as well as transgender treatments for minors. It also strikes at conscientious objection, forcing doctors and medical providers in humanitarian situations to refer women for abortions and to perform abortions against their conscience.

The concerns about UN abortion advocacy are a real threat to U.S. sovereignty, too. Several European nations, including the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and others, openly promote abortion as a humanitarian right. They have initiated the issue at the UN Security Council recently. They have also attacked U.S. pro-life laws in human rights mechanisms. They claim that the Helms Amendment and the Mexico City Policy are a violation of humanitarian law. UN Special Procedures and Treaty Bodies have done the same,  claiming that abortion is essential health care in humanitarian situations.

The first Trump administration was openly critical of UN abortion advocacy in humanitarian emergencies, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration threatened to veto a Security Council resolution twice, accompanied by strong statements from the then-U.S. Ambassador Kelly Kraft. Even Nikki Haley, who never made a pro-life statement at the United Nations, ultimately was pushed to vote against abortion-related language in the humanitarian resolution, even though she failed to put together a winning strategy.

Beyond the politics of abortion, the resolution also carries wider implications for UN cooperation with pro-life U.S. administrations going forward. As the largest single donor for humanitarian assistance, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually, the U.S. government has extra leverage in the humanitarian space. If the Trump administration cannot take out controversial issues like abortion and gender ideology from this UN resolution next week, there can be little hope that anything can ever change at the United Nations.

The adoption of the resolution, in this sense, is a test of the Trump administration’s ability to drive the UN system away from the divisive issues of abortion and gender ideology and deliver a pro-life win at the international level. So far, the second Trump administration has made very strong pro-life actions and statements, stronger than any previous administration. It has also confronted gender ideology. But it has yet to deliver a change in UN policy to put a stop to blatant abortion and gender ideology advocacy by UN agencies.

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter