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.”