This week, anti-Life Canadian bureaucrats renewed their commitment to funding abortions in Pro-Life African countries. After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pushed an anti-Life foreign aid agenda, his administration received harsh criticism, perhaps most notably in a strongly worded letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. This week, Canada’s Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau spoke in favor of the plan to pay for abortions in African countries receiving aid. Ignoring all Pro-Life concerns, Bibeau told CTVNews that abortion is simply “a tool to end poverty.”
The disturbing anti-Life argument that abortion can combat poverty is a dangerous lie. Abortion activists ignore the life of the preborn child in an attempt to better the life of his or her mother. But what mother’s life is improved by the death of her child? Instead of offering assistance with education and job training, which may truly lift women and their families out of poverty, anti-Life groups insist that women must kill their preborn children in order to escape poverty. Bibeau attempted to defend her position by saying that abortion and contraception are not the goal of the aid programs but rather are a way to “make an impact in terms of development and peace and security in the world.” Bibeau apparently misses the irony of thinking that the violent death of child in the womb will increase “peace and security in the world.”
In the wake of the controversial statements, several Pro-Lifers have noted the disturbing way in which Canadian foreign aid ministers appear to be imposing their anti-Life views on Pro-Life Africans. Obianuju Ekeocha, Pro-Life activist and founder of Culture of Life Africa, appeared on BBC World News to discuss the issues. Ekeocha noted that recent poll suggests that in some African countries more than 90 percent of people are Pro-Life. Ekeocha also noted the conflation of contraception and abortion by aid groups and the dangers that carries. She said, “Are we talking about contraception? Are we talking about abortion? They are two different things. If we are talking about abortion, well, I don’t think that any Western country has a right to pay for abortions in an African country, especially where the majority of people don’t want abortion.”
The letter from Bishop Douglas Crosby on behalf of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops included Ekeocha’s concern. Bishop Crosby inquired, “Has Canada forgotten that for a considerable population (both within Canada and abroad) the unborn child is regarded as a human being created by God and worthy of life and love?” Imposing anti-Life views that threaten the lives of the preborn is an injustice to the people to whom Canada is supposedly offering aid. Bishop Crosby also demonstrated the troubling discrepancy in money allotted for the anti-Life agenda in foreign aid and the money set aside to respond to severe food shortages in South Sudan, Yemen, northeast Nigeria, and Somalia. Although Canada will spend $650 million in abortion advocacy, foreign aid only pledged $119.25 million to combat the acute famine afflicting several African nations.
Bibeau’s comments this week reveal the disturbing dehumanization at the heart of the anti-Life worldview. For anti-Life, activists aiding those in poverty is not a matter of offering education and resources but instead ending the lives of those who would be born into poverty.