May 23, 2022 | Press Release
GENEVA, Switzerland — Today Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Global Outreach (MCCL GO) urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to cease its aggressive promotion of abortion and to prioritize its mission of health care instead. The World Health Assembly, WHO’s decision-making body, is gathering this week in Geneva for its 75th Assembly.
“The destruction of unborn children is not health care, and it’s not an international human right,” said MCCL GO Executive Director Scott Fischbach. “WHO has a mandate for health, not a mandate for abortion promotion. It has no authority to override the sovereignty of individual countries by pushing an agenda of unlimited abortion.”
In March, WHO released new “guidelines” on “abortion care” that provide instructions on how to perform abortion. The document recommends a policy of “abortion on request” and opposes waiting periods, parental involvement laws, and limits on when during gestation abortion can take place. It also encourages sending abortion drugs to pregnant women without medical supervision, despite the risk to women’s health, and claims that the importance of abortion trumps the conscience rights of health care workers.
“WHO’s guidelines ignore the human rights of the most vulnerable, undermine the health of women, and seek to infringe on the conscience rights of many in the medical community,” noted Fischbach. “They call for abortion-on-demand throughout pregnancy, an extreme policy rejected by most of the world. WHO must stop pressuring nations into adopting its abortion agenda.”
No right to abortion has ever been established in international law. On the contrary, international human rights instruments support the equal protection of human beings at all developmental stages. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states, “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law” (Article 6.1). The Convention on the Rights of the Child affirms that “the child … needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth” (preamble).
“The theme of this year’s World Health Assembly is ‘Health for peace, peace for health.’ But abortion is neither health nor peace,” said Fischbach. “Abortion attacks the health and ends the life of an innocent human being—it is the opposite of health care. Abortion is an act of violence, often involving dismemberment or poison. Women and children deserve better.”
MCCL GO is the U.N.- and OAS-accredited global outreach program of the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Education Fund. Our goal is to protect as many human beings as possible from the destruction of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Learn more at mccl-go.org.