A new documentary by Culture of Life Africa has revealed the extent of interference from Western governments pushing abortion in Africa.
Obianuju Ekeocha, writer and presenter of Strings Attached, exposed how the UK, Canada and other European nations are funding abortion giant Marie Stopes International (MSI), which uses the money to perform illegal abortions in Africa.
She also spoke to a number of African women who explained how rather than helping lift African women out of poverty, abortion is causing women harm.
“If Marie Stopes is kept running in Kenya, this is when women will die.”
‘Life begins at conception’
Ekeocha said Western nations are involved in what she called a form of ‘ideological colonisation’ – imposing their own views and values on poorer nations which don’t share them.
Because most African nations do not permit abortion, the assumption is that Africans are being denied abortions.
“They don’t have legal abortion not because they cannot legalise abortion. Most of the African nations do not have legal abortion because they don’t want legal abortion.
“We have parliaments, we have different paths of legislature that can go through the process of legalising abortion – of passing a Bill, of making it law – but still the African countries continue to hold on to a particular view of the human person that life begins at conception.”
Illegal abortions
Jacqueline Gandi worked at a Marie Stopes clinic in Kenya taking calls from women requesting abortions and referring them to doctors.
Abortion is illegal in Kenya, where the right to life is enshrined in the country’s constitution.
“But Marie Stopes do abortions every day. Even with that law in place”, Gandi said.
She explained that it could circumvent the law by recording abortions as “post-abortion care”.
“They’ve ruined a lot of lives.”
Ruining lives
Speaking anonymously, one woman told of her anger at Western governments funding of MSI in Africa.
She said: “I get angry because they are getting funding to ruin my life. They’ve ruined a lot of lives. I believe I’m not the first woman to go through the post-abortion stress syndrome.
“I am still trying to recover. They are being paid by people I consider the world’s elite. I’m angry and I’m shocked at the world elite’s ignorance.”
‘Women will die’
She also responded to claims that President Trump’s Mexico City Policy – which denies federal funding to non-governmental organisations which perform abortions – will lead to the deaths of African women.
“If Marie Stopes is kept running in Kenya, this is when women will die.
“They affect us negatively, so we need them to leave, for the sake of women’s health, even mental health especially.”
Quality of life
Celine Achieng told how she was given an abortion shortly after becoming pregnant: “I just went in and said ‘I want to do an abortion’, and there was no counselling or anything. So they just did it.”
Also hitting out at organisations funding abortions in Africa, she said: “If they could have been funding women to empower themselves and have jobs and just to have a way that they can go by day by day, it would have been a good thing.”
“We don’t need Marie Stopes.”
Akech Aimba, who had an abortion at a Marie Stopes clinic aged 18, added: “Organisations like Marie Stopes should be defunded because they are causing more harm than good.
“And that funding should be put at a place where the quality of the life of an African woman will be raised, and therefore the quality of the life of an African family will be raised, and therefore the society will be raised and developed.
Hurt
Gandi also weighed in: “My take – we don’t need Marie Stopes. Because what Marie Stopes has done has hurt so many women, men and families from abortion”.
She added: “All the other services that they do, we have other people that can do them, and even better.”
“So no. We don’t need Marie Stopes.”