{"id":251651,"date":"2021-08-22T11:36:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T16:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=251651"},"modified":"2021-08-19T18:29:41","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T23:29:41","slug":"world-health-organization-attack-pro-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/world-health-organization-attack-pro-life\/","title":{"rendered":"World Health Organization prepares to escalate attack on pro-life laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/world-health-organization-prepares-to-escalate-attack-on-pro-life-laws\/\">C-Fam &#8211;\u00a0Washington, DC<\/a>) The World Health Organization (WHO) is updating its technical and policy guidance on \u201csafe abortion.\u201d A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/gh.bmj.com\/content\/6\/6\/e005120\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">publication<\/a> strongly suggests that the forthcoming guidance will increase pressure on countries to remove legal protections from unborn children and health workers who object to participating in abortions.<\/p>\n<p>A paper published in BMJ Global Health presents a method for linking abortion laws and policies with health outcomes in order to help policymakers \u201cproduce stronger guidance related to abortion\u201d and potentially other areas of law.<\/p>\n<p>The paper was commissioned as part of WHO\u2019s process of updating its 2012 guidance on \u201csafe abortion,\u201d which was notable for <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/briefing_paper\/eleven-problems-with-the-2012-who-technical-guidance-on-abortion-3\/\">promoting<\/a> as \u201csafe\u201d methods of abortion in developing regions what would be unacceptable in more developed countries.\u00a0 This trend in WHO guidance has only increased in recent years, from delegating the provision of abortion to lower-tier health workers to <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/the-who-pushes-de-medicalization-of-abortion-in-updated-self-care-guidelines\/\">promoting<\/a> abortion as a \u201cself-care\u201d intervention without involving health professionals at all.<\/p>\n<p>The WHO is working to remove legal as well as medical safeguards around abortion.\u00a0 In 2017, it launched a legal and policy <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/new-un-database-pressures-countries-abortion-2\/\">database<\/a> on abortion intended to \u201celiminate the barriers that women encounter in accessing safe abortion services.\u201d\u00a0 The BMJ Global Health paper seeks to build on that database to draw causal links between pro-life laws and adverse health outcomes from \u201cunsafe\u201d abortions.<\/p>\n<p>For data on health outcomes, the WHO often looks to the work of pro-abortion research groups like the Guttmacher Institute and others who explicitly advocate for liberalized abortion laws.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, the paper focuses on laws mandating waiting periods, parental or spousal involvement, gestational limits, criminalization, provider restrictions and conscientious objection by health care providers.\u00a0 According to the authors, \u201c[c]urrently, WHO guidelines make no recommendations related to these legal interventions, but describe them as regulatory and policy barriers that may influence access to timely, safe abortion care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/world-health-organization-at-home-abortion\/\">World Health Organization promotes at-home abortions as part of new \u2018self-care\u2019 guidelines<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This may be about to change.\u00a0 The updated WHO \u201csafe abortion\u201d guidance has not yet been published, but the WHO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news\/item\/05-07-2021-who-pledges-extensive-commitments-towards-women-s-empowerment-and-health\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pledged<\/a> to \u201cdisseminat[e] updated guidelines on safe abortion\u201d as one of its commitments at the recent Generation Equality Forum in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the organization She Decides, which was founded to oppose former U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s pro-life foreign policies, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shedecides.com\/open-letter-from-shedecides-champions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published<\/a> an open letter stating that \u201cevery woman everywhere has the right to safe, legal abortion.\u201d\u00a0 The letter goes on to say, \u201c[w]e want to see the upcoming revised WHO guidelines on safe abortion implemented,\u201d strongly implying that the guidelines will represent a more aggressive attack on pro-life laws in countries around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The WHO has a long and well-documented history of <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/white_paper\/the-world-health-organizations-abortion-overreach\/\">promoting<\/a> abortion, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/health-topics\/abortion#tab=tab_1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">asserting<\/a> that \u201c[a]ccess to safe abortion protects women\u2019s and girls\u2019 health and human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abortion has never been accepted as a human right by any global agreement, nor in any binding global human rights treaty.\u00a0 At the landmark International Conference on Population and Development, the consensus position was that abortion laws are solely for countries to determine\u2014a standard that remains in place after a quarter of a century of UN debates.<\/p>\n<p>The WHO justifies its position based on the non-binding opinions of members of treaty monitoring bodies and other experts within the UN\u2019s human rights bodies.\u00a0 These groups and individuals have long been criticized for exceeding their mandates on abortion and other social issues, but little has been done to meaningfully hold them to account.<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note:<\/em>\u00a0<i>Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. writes for C-Fam. <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/world-health-organization-prepares-to-escalate-attack-on-pro-life-laws\/\">This article<\/a> first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-Fam (Center for Family &amp; Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/\"><i>https:\/\/c-fam.org\/<\/i><\/a><i>). This article appears with permission.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/?ref=br_rs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a> for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(C-Fam &#8211;\u00a0Washington, DC) The World Health Organization (WHO) is updating its technical and policy guidance on \u201csafe abortion.\u201d A recent publication strongly suggests that the forthcoming guidance will increase pressure on countries to remove legal protections from unborn children and health workers who object to participating in abortions. A paper published in BMJ Global Health [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":715,"featured_media":227003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,5,4],"tags":[19,12053,6229,1118,2258,998,1402,1423],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>World Health Organization prepares to escalate attack on pro-life laws<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The WHO has a long history of promoting abortion, asserting that \u201c[a]ccess to safe abortion protects women\u2019s and girls\u2019 health and human rights.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/world-health-organization-attack-pro-life\/\" \/>\n<meta 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