Washington (CNN)The Trump administration is urging the United Nations secretary general to remove any references to reproductive health, including abortions, from the UN’s humanitarian response plan to the coronavirus pandemic to “avoid creating controversy.”
“The United States stands with nations that have pledged to protect the unborn,” acting Administrator of USAID John Barsa wrote in a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres on Monday. “To achieve global unity toward this goal, it is essential that the UN’s response to the pandemic avoid creating controversy. Therefore, I ask that you remove references to ‘sexual and reproductive health,’ and its derivatives from the Global HRP, and drop the provision of abortion as an essential component of the UN’s priorities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.”