Koren explained that the United Nations Population Fund, known by the acronym UNFPA, provides Minimum Initial Service Packages. In these packs are instruments used in the context of abortion: vacuum extractors, craniocrasts for the crushing of fetal skills, and drugs to perform abortions.
While the UNFPA would say the equipment is used for complications from miscarriages, Koren said, "that's largely refuted because it comes with manuals from Ipas, an abortion provider, explaining how they can be used for abortions."
UNFPA and related agencies has a long history of sending this packages in tandem with abortion referral services.
Koren voiced alarm that the WHO refers to these kits in its coronavirus pandemic plans for Ecuador, which has suffered heavily from the disease and requested priority response from the WHO. It received $8 million in aid.
"Ecuador is a country that doesn't have abortion. Abortion is illegal," Koren said.
However, the coronavirus response plan for the country both says that Ecuador should implement legal, safe abortion and says that the MISP kits will be sent.
"It's very clear that at the end of the day, the implicit or explicit understanding is that Ecuador should legalize abortion if it wants to get money for the coronavirus," said Koren.
Some groups have asked Trump to reverse his decision to withdraw from the WHO, including the American Medical Association.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who heads the Senate Health Committee, said the move could disrupt clinical trials for high-demand vaccines, Politico reports.
"Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it," he said.
It is unclear whether Trump needs congressional approval to withdraw from WHO. He had told WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that after 30 days he would make the funding freeze permanent unless unspecified changes took place. However, he announced the move to withdraw only 11 days later.
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Asked whether abortion foes would be blamed if WHO faces resource shortages in fighting the novel coronavirus, Ebola or malaria, Koren replied: "I would say 'isn't it tragic that the WHO brought this on itself'."
"We have to be careful not to discredit the good work it's done in the past," she said. "But at the end of the day, the primary reason the U.S. defunded it wasn't on pro-life grounds."
Koren suggested the U.S. Agency for International Development could distribute aid instead. Beneficiary countries like Ecuador would then take its money from the U.S., without U.N. policy.
However, she acknowledged U.S. policy on foreign aid and abortion could change with the presidential administration.
Citing her 10 years of experience working at the U.N., Koren said pro-life advocates' goal there is to partner with countries to help make sure their voices are heard. The U.N., in theory, is supposed to listen.
"The member states are supposed to set the agenda. No member state, no matter how small, should be subsumed by the larger voices," she said. "A vast majority of countries, particularly in the developing world, have highly restrictive laws on abortion."