Bishops and lawmakers in Nigeria are warning that a European Union (EU) agreement could be used to force abortion upon pro-life Africa.
In November, the Samoa Agreement was signed between EU member states, and members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), to serve as a legal framework for relationships between the nations over the next 20 years. It includes six different areas: human rights, democracy and governance; peace and security; human and social development;
inclusive, sustainable economic growth and development; environmental sustainability and climate change; and migration and mobility. The agreement would have in place a common foundation applying to all nations, as well as regional protocols for Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, focused on the specific needs of each individual region.
Though it seems like an innocuous agreement, Nigerian lawmakers and bishops have concerns. Politicians are calling for an investigation into the details of the agreement, saying they were not consulted before authorities signed on. The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), meanwhile, released a statement saying the agreement not only compromises Nigerian values but threatens Nigerian sovereignty. The bishops and politicians alike were specifically concerned about how the agreement would affect Nigerian laws on abortion and gender identity.
Concerns about the Samoa Agreement
“We are concerned that our civil authorities may not be fully aware of the implications of the nuanced language in the document, which threatens our national sovereignty and values,” the CBCN said, adding, “The Samoa Agreement has 61 references to gender equality, gender perspectives and gender mainstreaming … The most outstanding is Article 2.5: The parties shall systematically promote a gender perspective and ensure that gender equality is mainstreamed across all policies … the term gender is no longer an innocent term. There are over 110 genders that would claim a stake in the term gender equality.”
They said that while the agreement looks attractive and harmless, the language is intentionally “blended with post-modern secularistic ideologies that significantly undermine the moral, cultural, and religious beliefs of Nigerian citizens.”
An amendment has been posed with the following suggested paragraph:
“Nothing in this binding agreement can be interpreted to include any obligations regarding sexual orientation, gender identity, comprehensive sexuality education, abortion, contraception, legalization of prostitution, same-sex marriage, or sexual ‘rights’ for children.”
If this amendment isn’t adopted, Nigerian authorities are urged to withdraw from the agreement.
It’s no overreaction
There have been numerous allegations over the years that Western nations are engaging in ideological colonization towards Africa, urging the continent to embrace abortion, and have fewer children.
READ: ‘Soft sterilization’: How doctors are coercing disadvantaged women into long-acting contraception
Numerous people, from Prince William to Melinda Gates, have complained that African parents have too many children, and need to reproduce less. European politicians have complained that the “too-high” birth rate in Africa will negatively impact Europe. Others, like President Biden, have anointed themselves as the saviors of Africa, promoting abortion in the largely pro-life continent.
Furthermore, when Africans have been in need of legitimate medical care, they have been given abortion and birth control instead. Notoriously, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many African nations did not have enough ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) to help people who were suffering from the virus. But instead of sending ventilators and PPE, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) sent $2 million worth of… abortion kits. Other nations, like Canada, used millions of dollars worth of COVID-19 funding to promote abortion in Africa.
There have also been abortion pill studies on African women, testing the efficacy of second-trimester chemical abortions, while abortion organizations like Marie Stopes International (now MSI Reproductive Choices) gave long-term birth control to underage African girls without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
Ideological colonization
Obianuju Ekeocha, a biomedical scientist and the founder of Culture of Life Africa, a U.K.-based pro-life group, condemned the Western push for abortion in 2016 when she spoke to the United Nations (UN). She told the UN that Ibo, her native language, and “most African languages, don’t even have a way of phrasing having an abortion that means anything good,” adding, “Most of the African communities actually believe by their traditions and their cultural standards that abortion is a direct attack on human life.” She explained that the abortion campaign in Africa is equivalent to telling an African woman “what her parents, her grandparents, her ancestors taught her is actually wrong. You’re going to have to tell her that they have always been wrong, and that, madame, is colonization.”
At a family planning summit in London, Ekeocha again pointed out that these pro-birth control, pro-abortion efforts are a move to ignore African values and impose European ones instead. “They need to go back to the integral care of the person, where they were thinking of the Africans not as people who they can colonize culturally and impose their new views and values on them, but as a people who have their own views and values,” she said. “What Africans want more than anything is for women to give birth safely… in a lot of these countries they can’t even get the most basic health care.”
Ekeocha also battled a BBC anchor who repeatedly insisted that African women should have access to birth control and abortion.
“Well, you’re saying ‘should’,” Ekeocha said. “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, if that… [t]hat’s kind of a Western solution, isn’t it? 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.”
