Washington, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Members of the U.S. Congress warned Monday that the proposed World Health Organization Pandemic Treaty, which would cede significant power of governance over nations to self-appointed globalists in the case of a newly declared “health emergency,” looms as the greatest threat to freedom, national sovereignty, and the sanctity of life that has ever been seen in human history.
In what legal experts have called a power grab modeled off China’s totalitarian communist regime, with a small committee of elite left-wing globalists appropriating to themselves control of all basic functions of a free society, the WHO Pandemic Treaty would be a legally binding agreement that lawmakers have pointed out fulfills the definition of a treaty, making it unconstitutional for the president to sign without the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate.
Rep. Chris Smith warns @WHO #pandemic treaty is the greatest threat to #freedom in human history
READ MORE: https://t.co/aDizOsAa1G pic.twitter.com/NbfLFATA4A
— LifeSiteNews (@LifeSite) February 6, 2024
In the event of new “health crisis” or “global pandemic,” the proposed treaty would cede to the WHO certain powers over member nations regarding the “crisis.”
The criteria for such a “health crisis” has been greatly broadened to potentially include the “health” of the planet, as well as any crisis arising from restrictions deemed “essential health care” by the WHO, such as abortion and so-called “transgender” surgeries.
In a press conference on Capitol Hill Monday afternoon with fellow lawmakers and political experts, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) addressed the threats to American democracy and the sanctity of life contained in still-debated clauses of the proposed treaty.
Drawing attention to the WHO’s explicit demand for abortion as so-called “essential health care,” a much-touted mantra of Biden’s aggressively pro-abortion administration, Smith said, “Article 6 of the Agreement calls for the ‘continued provision of… essential health services,’ which includes abortion on demand. There is absolutely no ambiguity here. Abortion is included in the list of essential health care services published by WHO in 2020 in the wake of COVID-19, despite the fact that a majority of countries restrict and regulate abortion.”
Detailing the WHO’s abortion agenda, Smith continued:
Paragraph 13 of the Pandemic Agreement affirms the need to prioritize ‘equity and respect for human rights’, yet on November 25, 2021, the WHO made clear that it construes the killing of unborn children by abortion – dismemberment, child beheading and starvation, and that’s how the abortion pill works – to be a human right.
Last February, WHO granted abortion provider and promoter International Planned Parenthood Federation ‘official relations with WHO’ status.
In August, WHO’s director general signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights to advance laws and policies according to WHO guidelines. And what’s that?
WHO’s law and policy guidelines on abortion – Towards a supportive law and policy environment for quality abortion care: evidence brief – a supplement to the WHO Abortion Care Guideline, proposes actions ‘to create an enabling environment’ for abortion and seeks the overturning of laws regulating or restricting abortion including waiting periods, parental notification, conscientious objection, and any gestational age limit – WHO now is pushing laws to legalize abortion for all nine months!
As we meet here today the WHO Executive Board is expected to vote in May to give another abortion-promoting organization – the Center for Reproductive Rights – ‘official relations with WHO’ status. This is an organization that, like the WHO itself, lobbies for changes in law, and uses case law to promote abortion on demand for all nine months.
On January 22, thirty-three pro-life organizations including the National Right to Life Committee, Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, AUL, Family Research Council, Heritage Foundation, LifeNews, signed a letter authored by C-FAM to WHO’s executive board urging them to stop the WHO from entering into an official relationship with the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) had similarly warned in October of WHO’s express intent to impose abortion on all member states party to the proposed treaty. In an October 10 briefing, C-Fam wrote:
The WHO has taken an increasingly extreme position on abortion, recently releasing a guideline calling for the repeal of all legal restrictions on abortion and seeking to curtail the right of health care providers to opt out of providing or assisting with abortions as a matter of conscience.
From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO insisted that abortion was an essential service, eventually urging countries to relax abortion regulations and consider expanding telemedicine mechanisms for delivering abortion drugs.
The WHO subsequently built on this recommendation in its 2022 abortion guideline, expanding it to non-emergency contexts for the first time, and explicitly referring to how telemedicine had ‘helped support access to abortion and family planning services during the COVID-19 pandemic.’
Given that the WHO has interpreted a purported right to abortion into the text of nearly every binding U.N. human rights treaty despite the fact that none of the painstakingly negotiated texts mention the issue at all, the organization can be expected to use the pandemic accord to impose abortion on countries bound to adhere to it.
This is precisely the kind of abortion activism that the Biden administration seems to expect from the WHO in a new pandemic accord. In her opening statement at the February 2023 meeting of the INB, the U.S. ambassador specifically called for ‘access to essential health care services during pandemics, including sexual and reproductive health services,’ which is language routinely used to promote abortion.
Smith told LifeSiteNews Monday that the WHO has become “the leading promoter of abortion in the entire world.” He called on the Vatican to “vigorously” oppose the treaty on account of its abortion agenda, saying “an all-out effort” is what is needed to keep it from moving forward.
Smith also said the treaty’s provisions categorizing abortion as “essential health care” could easily be used by the WHO to push transgender ideology and to impose medical mandates for the surgical mutilation and chemical sterilization of minors who wish to “transition,” again, regardless of existing laws to the contrary within member states. In June 2023, the WHO announced the development of a pro-transgender guideline advocating for mutilating surgeries and hormones. The period for feedback came to a close on February 2.
Lawmakers also raised the alarm over concerns the proposed treaty would give the left-wing globalist at the head of the WHO power to censor what they arbitrarily deem online “disinformation” regarding whatever might be declared a “health crisis,” a move not unknown to the Biden administration with the COVID narrative.
Further alarm was raised over a clause that would prohibit member states from making reservations to the terms of the treaty, which would bind them all in its entirely. Smith pointed out that “Nations, including the United States, are precluded by the draft Pandemic Agreement from taking reservations when they consider ratification concerning any aspect of the Agreement. Article 26: ‘No reservations may be made to the WHO Pandemic Agreement.’”
The clause runs afoul of the U.S Constitution, which gives the Senate the right to take any reservation when ratifying a treaty. The U.N. has explicitly stated that the treaty will be considered internationally legally binding on any states that sign onto it.
Other experts called the treaty, which can be revised by amendments approved by a central committee, a “power grab” modeled off the Chinese Communist Party, aimed at silencing all dissent and absorbing control of all member nations.
Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, stated in a December congressional hearing that WHO had failed to prioritize “honesty, transparency, and the health of citizens worldwide” in its COVID-19 pandemic response, instead succumbing to “undue influence from the Chinese Communist Party.”
The WHO missed its January 27 deadline for submitting a final draft of provisions for member states to review and debate, and yet is maintaining its May 27 date for a final vote on what appears to be an ever-evolving document.