Three recent statements issued by the White House declare the killing of unborn children in abortion to be “reproductive freedom”. In a statement following the passage of the pro-abortion Issue 1 referendum in Ohio, Vice President Kamala Harris called the killing of unborn children “reproductive freedom”. She said, “President Biden and I are working to protect reproductive freedom” and added that “extremists are pushing for a national abortion ban that would criminalize reproductive health care in every single state in our Nation.” Harris also said that Congress should “pass a bill that restores the protections of Roe v. Wade” and “when [not if] they do President Biden will sign it into law.”

In another statement, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to the decision by the Georgia Supreme Court to uphold Georgia’s six week abortion ban by declaring that the decision “stripped away the reproductive freedom of millions of women in Georgia”.

The White House also held its 25^th meeting with state pro-abortion legislators to strategize on advancing access to abortion on the state level. The White House State Legislative Convening on Reproductive Rights gathered 30 legislators from 16 states “to discuss their efforts to advance proactive legislation to further safeguard reproductive rights in the upcoming 2024 legislative session.”

The official statement of the meeting declared, “Republican elected officials continue to advance extreme abortion bans in states and at the national level, legislators across the country are fighting back to protect access to reproductive health care.”

Jennifer Klein, Assistant to the President and Director of the Gender Policy Council, and Tom Perez, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs convened the meeting and “thanked the legislators for their leadership and reaffirmed the importance of state partners in responding to attacks on reproductive freedom”.

An event was held at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. during which the Population Institute launched its new report Connecting the Dots: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights as Prerequisites for Global Gender Equity and Empowerment. The report claims that gender equality and empowerment are directly impacted by the availability and accessibility of “comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services”—abortion is listed as a core component. 

The Population Institute in Connecting the Dots attempts to make the case that the U.S. must increase its financial and political support for sexual and reproductive health and rigths if progress is to be made on achieving gender equality and empowerment worldwide. It also seeks to “break down the silos” within global health and development programs stating, “Policymakers must shift their mindsets from seeing SRHR as a siloed and contentious public health issue and, instead, shape their understanding of SRHR as a prerequisite for bipartisan policy goals related to gender equality and empowerment.”

Greater investment by the U.S. was a key topic of the event and the report as speakers stated that while the U.S. is the largest donor to international family planning efforts, “its allocation is a fraction of what is needed to achieve optimal health and wellbeing for women at a global level.”

Current U.S. funding for global family planning and reproductive health programs is $607.5 million including $32.5 million for UNFPA, but Population Institute and others say that the U.S. needs to give “its fair share”. According to Caitlin Horrigan, Senior Director of Global Advocacy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the calculation for the U.S. international aid contribution is $1.736 billion for bilateral and multilateral funding for family planning and reproductive health programs.

Connecting the Dots wants the U.S. to stop any exceptions or exclusions on funding for all components of the SRHR agenda including abortion and calls for a change in U.S. foreign policy on the congressional level. They seek passage of the Global HER Act to prohibit a future pro-life president from blocking U.S. funds to international organizations the perform or promote abortion; passage of the Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act which would remove the Helms policy which prevents U.S. taxpayer funds from paying for abortion overseas; and modify the Kemp-Kasten Amendment so the U.S. does not withhold funds from UNFPA.

Population Institute and Planned Parenthood Federation of America are among the pro-abortion NGOs who are seeking a 5-year reauthorization of over $30 billion in funding for Reimagined PEPFAR. Biden seeks to use the program to integrate HIV with SRHR with no restrictions on funding of organizations that perform or promote abortion, as was the pro-life prohibition during the Trump administration. 

Over 100 leading pro-abortion organizations released an abortion wish list for the Biden-Harris administration. The 2023 Blueprint for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice Policy Agenda presents additional policies and actions the groups want the Biden-Harris administration take to further advance abortion as part of what they call sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice (SRHRJ).

The groups explain their view that abortion is necessary for gender equality and bodily autonomy stating: “There is no gender equality or bodily autonomy for all without meaningful progress in reproductive justice, freedom, and liberty.”

Translation: Access to the killing of unborn children is reproductive justice, reproductive freedom, and reproductive liberty.

The NGOs say Dobbs “was an attack on bodily autonomy and is part of an ongoing global assault on human rights to undermine access to contraception, sex education, gender-affirming care, the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQIA+ people, and more.” They believe that as a result of Dobbs there are “escalating efforts to undermine sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice here and around the world.”

To counter pro-life movements in the U.S. and overseas, they want the Biden-Harris administration to take action on abortion policy, including allowing funding for abortion globally.



Read more here.

The state of Ohio has voted to make abortion a constitutional right this month when 56% of voters supported Issue 1. The new measure will override current state law and permit abortion on demand, even up until birth. Issue 1 also removes parental rights, permitting young teens to access abortion without parental consent. The push for abortion featured an aggressive campaign funded by abortion advocates, the majority of which came from out of state and outspent pro-life efforts 3 to 1. With Issue 1, Ohio will now have the most radical abortion policy in the country.

Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York, defended the rights of unborn children in a statement to Third Committee of the UNGA during discussion of Promotion and protection of the rights of children. Archbishop Caccia said that the promotion and the protection of the rights of the child “cannot be separated from measures to support and strengthen the family, since the ‘family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State,’ as also recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Therefore, any discussion of the rights of the children must be linked to the family.”

The archbishop described how a society that promotes the protection of the child promotes the well-being of the family explaining how a child’s development, sense of identity and belonging, health, education and success in adulthood are closely linked to the resources that families have at their disposal and urged policy makers to provide programs “that support and complement mothers and fathers, rather than replace them.”

Quoting the preamble of the Convention on the Rights of the Child—The child needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth— Archbishop Caccia described the current medical environment where life-saving treatment can be provided to pre-born children but then abortion is used to end the lives of some 73 million of pro-born children annually, including girls whose lives are ended once identified through prenatal sex selection and eugenic abortion which victimizes children with disabilities.

Archbishop Caccia lamented assisted reproduction, particularly surrogacy, which he said “reduces the child to a mere object to be used to satisfy the wishes of adults rather than a gift to be welcomed and cherished. These practices are incompatible with respect for the dignity and rights of the child.” He declared, “A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift,” stating each of whom deserves to be cherished, nurtured, and protected from his or her earliest moments with the “special care and assistance” due to childhood concluding, “With this as a firm foundation, we can achieve respect for the dignity and rights of each and every child.”

Peru’s Congress has voted to recognize the rights of the unborn child in the country’s constitution. Congressman Alejandro Muñante said the purpose of the law was to "to consolidate the right to life from conception, which is already established in our Constitution and in the Civil Code and the Code of Children and Adolescents." The newly passed “Law 785” or “Law that Recognizes Rights of the Conceived” identifies the unborn child as a human person entitled to rights. It recognizes the unborn child’s unique identity independent of its mother and acknowledges the unborn child’s rights to life, health, moral, mental and physical integrity, and more.

The newly amended Peruvian code will state: "Human life begins at conception. The human person is a subject of law from the moment of conception. The Peruvian State recognizes and guarantees respect for the dignity of the unborn, as well as his or her right to life, to his or her own identity, to mental and physical integrity, as well as to his or her free intrauterine development." 

One of the final articles of the law refers to the "rights of the pregnant mother" and specifies that "the State guarantees the pregnant mother's access to health, as well as the information required for health care and nutrition of the conceived during the gestational process".

Another article states, that in “situations of high medical risk, in which the life of the pregnant mother and the conceived child is endangered, health professionals, are obliged to report the diagnosis, treatment and effects of these on the health and development of the pregnant woman and the conceived child.” If the treatment endangers the life of either the mother or the child, that law states that “it is up to the mother or spouse, cohabitant or relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity and first degree of affinity, to decide regarding the medical acts to be carried out.”

The election of Rep. Mike Johnson to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was welcomed and celebrated by pro-life groups. Rep. Johnson has a solid record for voting pro-life and has been a strong advocate for the unborn, co-sponsoring many pro-life bills and sponsoring the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. According to Congressional Pro-Life Caucus Chair Chris Smith, “Mike is a great friend and lawmaker who relentlessly defends life, liberty, and the rule of law and works tirelessly to promote fiscal responsibility and peace through strength…He is a man of deep faith and principle who knows how to get things done.”



In his first address to the House as Speaker, Johnson said, "I want to tell all of my colleagues here what I told my fellow Republicans in that room last night. I don't believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible is very clear. That God raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you. All of us. And I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here at this specific moment in this time. This is my belief."

Pro-life leaders celebrated his election including Frank Pavone of Priests for Life who said, “Great news in the election of Rep. Mike Johnson as our new Speaker of the House. It is great news for America and great news for the pro-life movement.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser of SBA List said, “Mike Johnson is a longtime defender of constitutional principles, chief among them the right to life. He has boldly championed life as an activist, litigator, state legislator, and as a member of Congress. These strong credentials will help him lead the pro-life movement in this exciting and challenging new era as speaker of the House.”

Unfortunately, as expected, Speaker Mike Johnson was also attacked for his pro-life and pro-family views and his past work defending life, faith, and family as an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) including by the leader of the Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Brussels, Neil Datta. Datta joined in attacking ADF and Johnson in an interview with Rolling Stone during which he said that ADF should have its UN NGO status revoked charging that the organization works “to undermine human rights” and is “transforming religion from a shield into a weapon. We need to keep our eyes wide open on this group.”

The European Parliament held European Gender Equality Week during which pro-abortion organizations and Members of Parliament promoted access to abortion as a component of sexual and reproductive health and rights needed to achieve gender equality. NGOs including the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, World Vision, the ONE campaign, IPPF Europe, Save the Children, DSW, Plan International and others presented their demands for increased action at the European Parliament and from the EU Commission in an assessment paper EU for Girls, Civil Society Assessment of EU policies (2019-2023) advancing girls’ rights.

The NGOs expressed their view that “gender equality and SRHR are not add-ons tagged onto plans after everything else has been sorted out” but should be the heart of foreign and international cooperation policy and called on European governments “to adopt an inclusive feminist foreign policy by placing women’s rights, gender equality and social justice at the heart of all external policies.” They want governments to recognize “that SRHR are a prerequisite for gender equality, freedom and democracy and include SRHR in all policy frameworks linked to Gender Equality, freedom and democracy as an essential contributor.”

The paper praised the new agreement between the European Union and members of the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States saying the partnership “clearly commits to the promotion of SRHR” and calls for countries to “fully implement the African Maputo Protocol and its Plan of Action”, which is described as “a progressive and innovative regional framework protecting and promoting women and girls’ rights in Africa”. Maputo includes a right to abortion, the only treaty in the world that does.

The report of the United States to the Committee for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, filed by the Trump administration, came under review. The report pushed back on attempts by the treaty body to promote abortion as a right and included, “As the United States has clearly stated on many occasions, there is no international human right to abortion, nor is there any duty on the part of States to finance, promote, facilitate, or provide abortion.”

The Committee responded to the Trump report by claiming denial of access to abortion in numerous states was “non-compliance with the Covenant” and wanted to know what measures would be taken “to ensure access to safe and legal abortion and improve health care for all pregnant women in the context of the Supreme Court decision in ‘Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization’, and the state bans and restrictions which followed. 

The Biden-Harris delegation responded by saying that it “believed that the right to choose was fundamental and would continue to pursue legislation that restored the rights established in Roe v. Wade.” The delegation listed actions advancing access to abortion the U.S. government under President Biden has taken including having the Department of Justice monitor state law and take action “to defend and protect federal reproductive rights” as the administration “works to establish a statutory right to seek abortion care”. 

In its Concluding observations, the Committee welcomed “the information provided by the State party’s delegation on the various measures adopted at the Federal level to address ‘the immediate and devastating impact on women's health and rights’ of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization”. It expressed alarm at what it described as “the increase of legislation, barriers and practices at the state level that impede women’s access to safe and legal abortion” listing other laws and policies on abortion including “restrictions to inter-state travel, bans on medication abortion, and surveillance of women seeking abortion care through their digital data for prosecution purposes.”

The U.S. was told by the Committee that it needs to: “Provide legal, effective, safe and confidential access to abortion for women and girls throughout its territory, without discrimination, free of violence and coercion, including through the adoption of legislative initiatives such as the Women Health’s [sic Women’s Health] Protection Act.

The U.S. was told by the Committee that it needs to: “Provide legal, effective, safe and confidential access to abortion for women and girls throughout its territory, without discrimination, free of violence and coercion, including through the adoption of legislative initiatives such as the Women Health’s [sic Women’s Health] Protection Act."

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held a biased hearing on the impact of abortion bans in the U.S. during which pro-abortion organizations and individuals testified. Posted on the IACHR X account @CIDH:

United States: Abortion Access

“Organizations reported that after Roe v. Wade's reversal, 14 states implemented abortion bans, disproportionately impacting vulnerable women's rights and healthcare access.

“Fear of criminalization has strained healthcare providers and led women to travel, increasing risks. The State upheld reproductive rights, women's autonomy, and protective measures amid bans; mentioned actions to secure abortion access, privacy for individuals and healthcare professionals, and contraception availability; recognizing that, in some cases, women have to travel to access services.

“#IACHR expressed concern about the impact of abortion bans on vulnerable women accessing healthcare, threats to healthcare providers, and the effects on internal migration. It stressed abortion's importance for individual autonomy within democracy.”

Melanie Fontes Rainer, Director of Biden’s Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights testified saying, "The ability to decide one's own future is a fundamental American value, and few decisions are more significant and personal than the decision as to whether and when to start or expand a family." 

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is debating legislation to legalize assisted suicide, one of the two remaining Australian provinces where it is banned. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill of 2023 makes assisted suicide more accessible than the “Australian model,” which includes safeguards to protect patients and physicians. The ACT’s version of the law is considered one of the most liberal in the world. Specifically, the bill permits assisted suicide for patients suffering an “intolerable” condition, with “intolerable” being defined by the patient. It does not include a life expectancy time limit as most laws do, is not limited to residents of the territory, and while it says it is for adults over age 18, the government says it will consider requests for ages as young as 14 and for persons with dementia.

Euthanasia opponent Dr. Brendan Long called the bill “dangerous” explaining, “I’ve had the opportunity to campaign against the legislation across the country and this is the worst bill that has been put forward. It contains the weakest safeguards and it’s going to create the greatest risk to the most vulnerable people in the territory.” The bill now goes to a committee where it will be open to public comments.

The Isle of Man’s parliament has voted to legalize assisted suicide. The House of Keys, the government’s lower branch, approved the Assisted Dying Bill by a vote of 17 to 7. The law will permit adults aged 18 and older who are not expected to live more than six months and are of sound mind to “be lawfully provided with assistance to end their life.” Results of a public consultation of the bill released last spring indicate slightly more respondents opposed assisted suicide than supported it- 49.61 percent to 49.01 percent. There “is no evidence of a mandate,” argued Chief Minister Alfred Cannan. “The path we should take is one that leads us to compassionate palliative care.”

A new bill in Scotland would outlaw any form of pro-life counseling, prayer, or protest within 200 meters of abortion clinics. The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill, sponsored by Gillian Mackay, would create a minimum of 656 feet of “safe access” around any abortion facility, with the option for abortionists to apply to extend it further. Pro-life groups criticized the bill, saying it would be the “most extreme” in the world. The Catholic Church warned against the proposed bill and encouraged parliamentarians to oppose it: “Gillian Mackay’s proposals are the very definition of intolerance; they would crush and curtail expressions of speech, religion, association, and conscience. It is to be hoped that MSPs will reject them.”

Pro-abortion MP Maria Miller has announced her plans to hijack a government bill to introduce abortion up to birth. The abortion lobby is pushing hard to fully “decriminalize” abortion, which in effect means removing all time limits and restrictions. MP Miller said she plans to amend the King’s Speech legislation to do so. Current UK law limits abortion after 24 weeks. The proposed change would allow abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth.

“‘Decriminalisation’ means making abortion legal up to birth and its supporters are perfectly clear about this. A civilised society does not set mothers against their own children especially moments before their children are born. There is no real difference between a baby a month before birth and a month after birth,” said Right to Life UK spokesperson Catherine Robinson.