InternatIonal organIzatIons research group • WhIte paper • number eleven The World Health Organization’s Abortion Agenda By Andrew M. Essig, Ph.D. A Program of Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute InternatIonal organIzatIons research group • WhIte paper • number eleven The World Health Organization’s Abortion Agenda By Andrew M. Essig, Ph.D. A Program of Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute © 2010 Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute 866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 495 New York, New York 10017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface .................................................................. v Introduction ............................................................1 Part I: Overstepping its Mandate or Wrong Mandate? ....................5 Part II: Abortion .......................................................17 • Flawed Nature of WHO Data .......................................20 • Experimenting with Abortion on the World’s Women ...............22 • Radical Roots of WHO Abortion Activism ..........................24 • Pressuring Governments to Change Abortion Laws ..................25 • Arbitrarily Redefining “Pregnancy” .................................26 • Funding WHO’s Abortion Agenda ..................................27 Part III: Family Planning as Human Rights Activism ....................33 • Fighting Religion and Tradition to Promote Family Planning ........35 • Pitfalls of the Rights-based Approach ...............................38 Implications, Policy Recommendations, and Conclusions ...............45 List of Acronyms .......................................................50 Biography ..............................................................51 Photo Credits ..........................................................52 PREFACE How did the World Health Organization (WHO), the world’s premier health institution, become one of the world’s top abortion research and advocacy institutions? From the time it was founded to heal suffering people after World War II, WHO has gradually adopted a special agenda to train abortionists, conduct abortion experiments on pregnant women, and promote the highly controversial idea that access to “safe” abortion is a human right. WHO capitalizes on its good reputation and exploits the extensive networks forged with rich and poor nations from its original role in order to carry out the abortion agenda all over the world. Along with other United Nations agencies, WHO intervenes in recipient countries pressing the belief, promoted as policy, that economic development is not possible without a host of progressive ideas. Among these ideas is the notion that building modern health systems requires “safe” abortion, contraception, emergency contraception, and sexual autonomy of adolescents. Much if not all of this corpus of beliefs runs counter to, and in effect undermines, the national and local traditions and cultures of WHO recipient nations. The shift in focus may seem like a radical reorientation away from its mandate of healing and health, but the actors who caused the change did not necessarily see it that way. In fact, the change happened by degrees. It was the work of countless and largely nameless individuals on government delegations and bureaucratic staffs in Geneva. It was backed by elites in the halls of medicine, academia, and government from the mostly rich Western nations, who sought to use the institution they funded in order to promote a progressive agenda they believed in. In “The World Health Organization’s Abortion Agenda,” Andrew Essig endeavors to show how far WHO has come from its original mandate, to expose the degree to which the abortion agenda has permeated its ideology, and who is providing the funding to promote it. The paper examines how WHO has emphasized family planning, including abortion, by eschewing other aims. All of this to the detriment of that institution’s effectiveness and reputation. Finally, it offers recommendations for concerned policy makers in donor and recipient nations. International Organizations Research Group • White Paper • Number Eleven v Dr. Essig’s paper provides a well-deserved critique of the way the world’s premier health organization has become the world’s top abortion advocate. In so doing, Dr. Essig adds his voice to an ongoing debate about what WHO recipient nations can do to protect their pro-life laws and policies from WHO interventions. Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. Director International Organizations Research Group vi International Organizations Research Group • White Paper • Number Eleven International Organizations Research Group • White Paper • Number Eleven vii