Overview
- New guidance circulated in November instructs embassies to treat state-subsidized abortion, workplace DEI or affirmative action that confers preferential treatment, and gender-transition procedures for minors as human-rights violations.
- Future reports must include each country’s total estimated annual abortions and document arrests or penalties tied to speech, including enforcement of European online-safety and hate-speech laws.
- Diplomats are also told to flag policies that facilitate mass or illegal migration and to note additional items listed in the guidance, including coerced euthanasia and specified medical abuses such as forced organ harvesting.
- Deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the shift targets “new destructive ideologies,” and a senior official framed the focus as rights endowed by the Creator rather than granted by governments.
- Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticized the overhaul as damaging to U.S. credibility and harmful to marginalized groups, noting it builds on the August 2024 report that cut coverage of political freedoms, corruption, gender-based violence and LGBTQ+ persecution.