WHO Guidelines on Abortion Imply Conscience Objections Are 'Indefensible'

Catholic News Agency ^ | 3/21/22 | Kevin J. Jones

[marshmallow]

The World Health Organization’s latest guidelines on abortion treat individuals and institutions that object to abortion as an obstacle, while ignoring the right to life.

Among the WHO recommendations is the claim “that access to and continuity of comprehensive abortion care be protected against barriers created by conscientious objection.”

“If it proves impossible to regulate conscientious objection in a way that respects, protects and fulfils abortion seekers’ rights, conscientious objection in abortion provision may become indefensible,” said the “Abortion Care Guideline” document released March 9.

The guidance drew criticism from Alyssa Koren, director of United Nations advocacy at ADF International, a legal group that backs the right to life of the unborn.

“By stating that conscience rights may become ‘indefensible,’ these new guidelines make clear that the WHO aspires to not only flout international law, but also in due course, to change it,” she told CNA March 21. “Put bluntly, the organization is looking to leverage its enormous influence and budgetary power to chip away at international provisions and eventually work to establish a new legal regime that endorses abortion ‘rights’ with no right to conscientious objection.”

“Although it lacks any legal authority to do so, the WHO wields tremendous influence, and this insidious agenda must be called out and stopped to protect unborn life and the overall integrity of the international legal system,” Koren said.

The Abortion Care Guideline document was edited by the WHO, the United Nations’ health agency, and the Human Reproduction Programme, a U.N. research program under the aegis of many U.N. agencies. The document says its recommendations and best practices “aim to enable evidence-based decision-making with respect to quality abortion care.”