WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – A group of Republican lawmakers wants the World Health Organization (WHO) to lose its federal funding if it moves forward with plans to partner with the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), warns a letter to the embattled international agency led by Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona.
In December 2023, a WHO executive board meeting entertained a proposal of official relations with CRR to collaborate on various objectives over the next three years. CRR describes its mission as “ensur(ing) reproductive rights” – meaning abortion – “are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.” It boasts that it has “(p)articipated in every major U.S. Supreme Court abortion case since our founding” in 1992, and “(s)trengthened reproductive laws and policies in more than 65 countries across five continents.”
In their May 16 letter to the WHO’s executive board, 26 GOP members of Congress called CRR a “radical organization that manipulates international mechanisms to impose abortion on countries,” “colluding with UN staff and agencies to pressure countries through UN mechanisms as well as international and national courts” at the expense of national sovereignty and democratic processes.
“In fiscal year 2022, the U.S. government supplied the WHO over $700 million, making it the single largest WHO donor,” the lawmakers noted. “As members of Congress, we will look upon a decision to give special status to the Center for Reproductive Rights as evidence that the WHO is unreformable and as a further argument to withhold all funding to the organization. We strongly urge you to reject the Center for Reproductive Rights’ application to enter into official relations with WHO.”
Commenting on the situation, Family Research Council (FRC) vice president for policy and government affairs Travis Weber added that “we’re not going to see any pro-life organizations likely being welcomed into such a partnership with the WHO, 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.”
The WHO is slated to consider the proposal at the 155th session of its Executive Board on June 3-4.
In the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration has worked feverishly to support the abortion industry with every means at its disposal, including giving it nearly $2 billion from U.S. taxpayers just since fiscal year 2019, according to a December report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Meanwhile, American support for the WHO has long been a contentious issue for multiple reasons.
Long known for a similar left-wing bias to that of the United Nations, the WHO has faced additional criticism since COVID-19’s outbreak in 2020 for, among other offenses, opposing bans on travel from China that could have limited the reach of COVID, for legitimizing the false claims coming out of the Chinese government that initially downplayed the gravity of the situation and covered up the Communist regime’s mishandling of it, and for favoring the lockdown and mandate policies that exacerbated harm while curtailing basic freedoms and failing to improve health outcomes.
Near the end of its tenure, the Trump administration began the process of formally withdrawing the United States from the WHO. But upon taking office, the Biden administration notified the body that it would contribute $200 million by the end of February 2021, restoring the aid Trump had canceled and asserting a “renewed commitment” to the WHO.