Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar spoke to representatives from more than 30 nations Thursday morning in Washington, promoting a “positive vision for women’s health” that, he added, doesn’t include abortions.
“I stated this fact at the United Nations this past September, and I’ll repeat it here,” he said, according to a transcript provided to The Washington Times of Thursday’s speech at the Blair House. “There is no international human right to abortion. On the other hand, there is an international human right to life.”
He issued rules in 2019 championed by the anti-abortion community that led to Planned Parenthood dropping its participation in a federal low-income health care grant program.
In Thursday’s speech, Mr. Azar decried efforts, in his words, to “normalize” terms such as “reproductive rights” and “sexual and reproductive health.”
“What reproductive rights are they talking about?” asked Mr. Azar, according to the transcript. “… [I]t is increasingly becoming clear that some U.N. agencies and countries want this to mean unfettered access to abortion, and we cannot let this threat go unanswered.”
One nation represented at Thursday’s meeting, which was closed to press, was Hungary, whose Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs, Katalin Novák, was in D.C. in December, promoting her government’s pro-birth policies, including removing income tax burdens for certain mothers with four or more children.
• Christopher Vondracek can be reached at cvondracek@washingtontimes.com.
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