Abortion activists worried pro-life policies will keep African women from getting contraception

According to the Associated Press, pro-abortion organizations believe that a second Trump administration will prevent women in Africa from getting contraception if he reinstates the pro-life policies put into place in his first administration. Primarily, the concern seems to center on the Mexico City Policy.

This policy, originally put into place in 1984 during the Reagan administration, bans the use of taxpayer dollars to fund the killing of preborn children in foreign countries, and has been reinstated or rescinded via executive order since that time, based on who is in office as president. During Trump’s first term, he not only reinstated the policy, but expanded it. Pester Siraha, director of Population Services Zimbabwe, an affiliate of MSI Reproductive Choices, said the notion of this happening again makes MSI “uneasy.”

Yet MSI Reproductive Choices was not only giving out birth control during Trump’s first term, it was giving minor children long-term birth control in Africa… without getting their parents’ consent.

For an organization to receive funding, it cannot commit abortions or counsel women on them. MSI Reproductive Choices, formerly known as Marie Stopes International, is one of the largest abortion chains in the world. “It leaves women with no place to turn for help, even for information,” Whitney Chinogwenya, global marketing manager at MSI Reproductive Choices, claimed.

As reported by The Daily Signal during Trump’s first term as president:

Significantly, the old Mexico City policy only applied to family planning funds—over half a billion dollars.

The new policy establishes pro-child safeguards—benign, humane conditions—on about $8.8 billion in annual global health assistance funding appropriated to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of State and Defense.

This funding includes not only family planning, but other global health assistance such as maternal and child health, malaria, and HIV/AIDs.

The Associated Press claims that numerous facilities have cut back on the services they provide, such as “clinics, contraception, training and support for government and community health workers, as well as programs for young people, sex workers and LGBTQI+ communities.”

But what does Africa want?

African delegations at the United Nations don’t seem to want abortion

According to a report from C-Fam, on November 20, African delegations including Burundi and others fought and won against a first-time-ever attempt to add “reproductive health” to a resolution on the family. C-Fam’s Stefano Gennarini wrote, “Traditional countries were shocked when the first draft of the resolution in October contained the pro-abortion term “reproductive health.” The annual resolution on the observance of the International Year of the Family had never included abortion-related terms before. This year’s resolution had the added importance of marking the 30th anniversary of the observance.”

Delegates from Nigeria, Egypt, and even Russia praised the outcome, but other nations — like the U.S., Mexico, the UK, and even Hungary — “were bitterly disappointed that the resolution did not include abortion language or recognition of homosexual couples as families.” Gennarini added that “Delegates speaking on behalf of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand said that sexual and reproductive health care services were ‘critical to the wellbeing of families’ and said that ‘families are represented in many forms, including… Children with same-sex families and many others.'”

Africa’s fight against “ideological colonization”

Much of the world seems very intent on keeping women in Africa from having children.

Westerners like Prince William and Melinda Gates have openly stated their belief that African women have too many children, and need to reproduce less… thus the push for abortion and birth control. Many have also pointed out that this is a form of ideological colonization, as Africans often oppose abortion and birth control.

Obianuju Ekeocha, a biomedical scientist and the founder of Culture of Life Africa, a UK-based pro-life group, previously battled a BBC anchor over the supposed “need” for African women to have birth control.

Ekeocha explained there are many things that African women need to improve their lives — but artificial contraception is not one of them.

“Well, you’re saying ‘should’,” Ekeocha said of the claim that African women need access to contraceptives. “But who are you to decide, if you don’t mind me saying? The thing is, there isn’t a popular demand, ma’am. There isn’t a popular demand. If you go to Africa, what people are asking for every day — because I was born in Africa, I was raised in Africa, I continue to go to Africa many times a year — you just speak to any ordinary woman, and I think contraception might be the tenth thing she says [she needs], if that.”

The anchor responded by repeatedly interrupting, insisting that birth control is a “human right” that would solve African women’s problems. “Well, that’s kind of a Western solution, isn’t it?” Ekeocha responded. “If you speak to the ordinary woman on the streets of Africa, what is she asking for? She’s asking for food. She’s asking for water. She’s asking for basic health care. And contraception continues to be about the last thing she would ever think of.”

Ekeocha also pointed out that Western countries not only push contraceptives on African women, telling them that birth control will bring them out of poverty, but fail to counsel them on potential side effects, leaving them to suffer when those side effects happen without any help.

“Someone from a western organization — one of these western organizations in Africa — came and put IUDs into [African women] and told them this is what you need to come out of poverty,” Ekeocha said. “That is not what African women need. That is not the single indicator to come out of poverty. What Africans need is education, and opportunities, and good government.”

Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.