US State Department classifies pro-abortion policies as human rights abuses

The State Department has reportedly issued new guidelines for compiling an annual report on global human rights abuses — and those guidelines require embassies, consulates, and diplomats to consider countries with state-sponsored pro-abortion policies as infringing upon human rights.

Key Takeaways:

• Media sources say the State Department has issued new guidelines ensuring that its human rights abuse report includes pro-abortion government policies as abuses of human rights.

• The report allegedly informs U.S. policy on security assistance, sanctions, and trade regarding all United Nations member nations and all countries receiving U.S. assistance.

The Details:

According to Reuters, a "senior State Department official" who the BBC said was "speaking on condition of anonymity," noted:

"The United States remains committed to the Declaration of Independence's recognition that all men are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights." 

The official added that rights were "given to us by God, our creator, not by governments".

The anonymous official, reported Reuters:

... said that new instructions to U.S. officials on the report mandate they include "infringements on human rights in foreign countries," including on arrests or official investigations over speech as well as the state subsidization of abortions or abortion drugs and the total estimated number of annual abortions. Officials are also mandated to note the enforcement of diversity, equity and inclusion policies that "'provide preferential treatment' to workers on the basis of race, sex, or caste."

The report includes all countries that receive U.S. assistance and all United Nations member states, and informs U.S. policy on security assistance, sanctions, and trade.

“In recent years, new destructive ideologies have given safe harbor to human rights violations,” Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, told The Daily Signal. “The Trump administration will not allow these human rights violations, such as the mutilation of children, laws that infringe on free speech, and racially discriminatory employment practices, to go unchecked. We are saying enough is enough.”

The guidelines also require the tracking of euthanasia, violations of religious freedom, forced organ harvesting, forced testing and gene editing of human embryos, DEI programs, and child mutilation in the name of transgenderism.

As reported by The Telegraph, the new guidelines mean "[t]he US has designated abortions on the [UK's] NHS [National Health Service] as a human rights violation." The news outlet explained that of the 250,000 abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, 99% were funded by the government.

"The UK and other member states will now be asked to count the number of abortions taking place in their countries, and face being denounced in the official report for funding abortions or distributing drugs that end a pregnancy," reported The Telegraph.

Why It Matters:

No government — including that of the United States — should be funding abortion in any way. Consistency would demand that the U.S. hold itself to this same standard of human rights.

Government funding of abortion increases the number of abortions. In the U.S., history has shown this to be true.

A 2017 report from the pro-abortion Reproductive Health Investors Alliance showed the percentage of abortions funded by taxpayers in states that do not pay for abortions via Medicaid was just 1.5%. However, in states that pay for abortions via Medicaid, that figured jumped to 52.2%. 

A 2018 analysis published by the Guttmacher Institute found that “Medicaid was the second-most-common method of payment [for abortion], reported by 24% of abortion patients.”

The Bottom Line:

Governments should not be funding the slaughtering of innocent human beings and encouraging mothers to kill their preborn children by enticing them with "free" abortions as many of them face economic hardships and concerns about being financially able to raise their children.

Abortion itself is a human rights abuse as it kills innocent human beings because they are considered inconvenient non-persons. But to then pay for women to abort their babies while failing to support those who choose life destroys the so-called "choice" that pro-abortion policymakers purport to value.

Instead of funding death, governments should spend tax dollars on funding policies that support the economy and families.