Trump admin tells World Health meeting: abortion is not a ‘method of family planning’
The U.S. delegation issued this statement at the World Health Assembly in Switzerland, criticizing recent efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote abortion. The delegation expressed “deep concern” at the priorities of the world’s preeminent health entity.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar led a U.S. delegation to the
71st World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva. His remarks focused on the
event’s stated business of Ebola assistance and other health challenges,
but the delegation also issued a statement challenging the World
Health Organization’s (WHO) promotion of abortion via its Human
Reproduction Program.
“We remind our fellow delegates that the International Conference on
Population and Development forged international consensus that abortion
should in no case be promoted as a method of family planning,” it said,
according to a press release by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for
Life Global Outreach (MCCL GO).
“The United States remains a stalwart defender and donor to maternal and
children’s health, life, and wellbeing. And we will never waiver on that support,”
the U.S. statement added.
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Kevin
Moley was reportedly instrumental in ensuring that the delegation took
a pro-life stance at the meeting.
This week’s statement seems to be a direct rebuke to statements such
as WHO researchers’ declaration last year that women seeking to “avoid
pregnancy [...] will need family planning services such as contraception and
access to safe abortion,” and that “barriers to access, availability,
utilization and readiness of contraception, abortion and post-abortion
services” should be reevaluated.
“There has been a growing activist trend at WHO encouraging the
legalization of abortion worldwide,” MCCL GO executive director Scott
Fischbach said. “We applaud the Trump administration for this pro-life
statement.”
The stand is the latest of several President Donald Trump’s administration
has taken to advance the right to life on the world stage.
One of Trump’s first moves in office was to reinstate and expand the
Mexico City Policy, forbidding billions in foreign aid money from being
distributed to organizations involved in abortions. United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator
Mark Green continues to defend that policy before critics.
In March, USAID adviser Bethany Kozma told a private meeting of the
United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women that the “US is a
pro-life country,” and as such wanted the commission’s final report
to replace “modern contraception” with “family planning” that included
abstinence education.
The next month, State Department ambassador Michael Kozak declared
that abortion is “not a human right” and that the administration
considers international contraception “access” to be a non-issue.
America’s delegation to the UN has also resisted efforts to recognize a
“right” to abortion under international law.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trump-admin-tells-world-health-meeting-abortion-is-not-a-method-of-family-p
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment