The World Health Organization is considering partnering with a radical pro-abortion group in the United States.
In a December 2023 executive board meeting, the secretariat of WHO proposed that the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) be admitted into official relations with the organization. Such a partnership includes collaboration between WHO and CRR on agreed objectives and activities for a three-year period to uphold WHO’s mission to “contribute significantly to the advancement of public health.”
Yet CRR is one of the most influential pro-abortion organizations in the United States. The George Soros-funded advocacy group repeatedly sues to stop or overturn pro-life laws in the United States and abroad and is known for its pro bono work to that effect. In its 2018 annual report, CRR took significant credit for Ireland’s referendum legalizing abortion.
In a letter to WHO Executive Board members dated January 22, multiple American pro-life organizations, including Family Research Council, urged the organization to oppose giving CRR official status due to its efforts to “manipulate international cooperation to promote abortion as a human right.”
The letter states:
“Granting the Center for Reproductive Rights an official status within the WHO framework would run counter to the principles of the WHO Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (WHA69.10, paragraph 5), which require the WHO Executive Board to consider if entering into official relations with a non-state actor may “compromise WHO’s integrity, independence, credibility, and reputation.” This is squarely the case with the Center for Reproductive Rights, which has proved incapable of providing accurate legal information and has repeatedly compromised scientific evidence in its advocacy materials in favor of its preferred policy outcomes.”
Not only would WHO’s reputation be tainted by aligning itself with CRR’s pro-abortion advocacy, but also its pro-transgender and other controversial sexual politics, the letter emphasizes. Further, such a clear partisan alliance could jeopardize the funding WHO receives from the United States, the letter warns, especially in the event of a future pro-life administration. Currently, the U.S government is WHO’s largest donor, receiving $700 million from the U.S. in 2022 alone.
FRC Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs Travis Weber told FRC President Tony Perkins on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch” that such an alliance shows great hypocrisy by the WHO.
“We’re not going to see any pro-life organizations likely being welcomed into such a partnership with the WHO,” Weber said, “despite the WHO’s own guidelines calling for neutrality and impartiality to protect the integrity of its public health mission as a world health entity.”
Emma Waters, a research associate in the DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the Heritage Foundation, told The Washington Stand that the potential partnership “contradicts the WHO’s purported commitment to global public health as it aligns with an ideologically-driven agenda rather than prioritizing the well-being of women and unborn lives.”
“Surgical and chemical abortions wreak havoc on a woman’s physical, psychological, relational, and emotional health,” Waters emphasized. “The potential use of U.S. tax dollars to support an organization that promotes abortion as ‘health care’ compromises the credibility of the WHO and undermines the values of those who advocate for the sanctity of life.”
This isn’t the first time the WHO has been criticized for privileging one side of a contentious ethical debate over others. Earlier this month, the U.N. special rapporteur on violence against women and girls accused the organization of taking an unbalanced, pro-medicalizing approach in its development of new health care guidelines for transgender-identifying individuals.
