By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-25 00:21:14 | Updated at 2025-01-26 06:49:10
1 day ago
CV NEWS FEED // President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the pro-abortion World Health Organization (WHO).
The White House announced the withdrawal Jan. 20, citing the WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”
The WHO’s top financial backer has been the U.S. According to the White House, the global organization “demand[s] unfairly onerous payments from the United States,” noting the payments are especially disproportionate compared to what other countries appear to contribute.
WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated Jan. 23 that the U.S. decision to withdraw has caused concern among WHO personnel and “has made our financial situation more acute,” according to CBS News.
Included in the WHO’s investments are efforts to promote abortion. The WHO has stated on its landing webpage about abortion that advancing “the progressive realization of human rights” requires global access to abortion.
According to its website, the organization has invested in “WHO abortion care tools” and in 2023 announced an “Abortion care guideline,” a “Clinical practice handbook for quality abortion care,” and a mobile phone app related to committing abortions as well.
Just this month, the WHO promoted a publication about “removing barriers to self-managed abortion in Zambia,” as well as a publication about “ensuring” second trimester surgical abortions are available throughout a “global network” operated by MSI Reproductive Choices.
From 2022-2023, the WHO’s Human Reproduction Programme spent 11% of its entire budget on abortion-related expenses. Right to Life UK pointed out in a report that the HRP budget also boasts of its efforts to “scale up” the availability of the chemical abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation said in a Jan. 22, 2025, statement that it “strongly condemns” the U.S. decision to withdraw financial support from the WHO.
In September 2023, the United Nations General Assembly announced a non-binding declaration on pandemic response and prevention efforts, which was welcomed by the WHO. However, somewhat “buried” within the document is language indicating the expansion of abortion, according to The Washington Stand.
“Activists are using a declaration about pandemic preparedness to advance ‘universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services’ which we know means universal abortion expansionism,” Family Research Council Center for Religious Liberty Director Arielle Del Turco told the Stand at the time. “It is dangerous and abusive to pressure countries to expand abortion under the guise of responding to future pandemics.”
