In a reintroduction meeting with the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and former member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response team, announced that President Joe Biden will repeal the “Mexico City policy” in the “coming days,” again allowing taxpayer funds to potentially flow to pro-abortion NGOs and abortion providers abroad.
Dr. Fauci was selected Wednesday as the Biden administration’s official envoy to the World Health Organization, which President Biden rejoined as one of his first acts, despite the organization’s much-criticized record on handling the global coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump withdrew America’s support for and participation in the WHO last year, after noting that the WHO had willingly accepted information from Chinese officials who tried to obscure the COVID-19 virus’s origins, characteristics, and spread, and that the United States did not benefit from its outsized contribution to the global healthcare organization.
In his first statement to the WHO, Dr. Fauci was quick to note that the Biden administration would restore and even possibly expand support for abortion providers operating abroad.
“In prepared remarks released by the White House on Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci tells the World Health Organization’s executive board that Biden will soon revoke the Mexico City Policy ‘as part of his broader commitment to protect women’s health and advance gender equality at home and around the world,'” National Public Radio reported Thursday.
“President Biden will be revoking the ‘Mexico City policy’ in the coming days as part of his broader commitment to protect women’s health and advance gender equality at home and around the world,” Fauci told the WHO’s executive board.
The policy, also known as the “global gag rule” by abortion providers, “prohibits U.S. funding for nongovernmental groups that provide or refer patients for abortions,” according to NPR, and provides significant funding to certain abortion providers’ overseas operations, including Planned Parenthood’s.
Although there are no current figures — the Mexico City policy has been in effect since 2017 — the conservative Heritage Foundation reports that from 2013 to 2015, International Planned Parenthood Federation and a partner organization, Marie Stopes International, which also provides abortions abroad, received around $120 million “for global health assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).”
In his remarks, Dr. Fauci also indicated that the United States would sign on to the WHO’s Covax program, which “pools international funds to buy vaccines and equally distribute them around the world.” The Trump administration refused to sign on to the program, citing concerns about the Chinese and Russian COVID-19 vaccines.
Biden is moving quickly to reverse many of the Trump administration’s pro-life positions. In addition to repealing the Mexico City policy, the Biden White House says it intends to explore repealing the Hyde Amendment, a similar prohibition on taxpayer funds going to pay for abortions, but domestically. Biden himself also expressed support for reinstituting an Affordable Care Act mandate requiring even religious employers to provide contraception coverage to employees free of charge.