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President Joe Biden’s commitment to restart federal funding to abortion centers overseas and commitment to codify Roe v. Wade are not being received well by Africa’s formidable pro-life and Christian communities.
Quick Facts
It has been a sort of twisted tradition in presidential administrations over the past several decades to either reinstate or rescind the controversial Mexico City Policy.
Democratic presidents who have usually run on platforms vowing to protect or even expand access to abortion domestically rescind the ban, while Republicans, like former presidents Trump and George W. Bush, have put it back in place.
With a Democrat back in the White House who arguably has the least pro-life policy platform of any U.S. president in history, the pro-life community globally has raised the alarm about the inhumanity of the globe’s most powerful force for good directly funding the destruction of unborn life in developing nations.
In an interview following U.S. President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, one of the top Catholic leaders in Africa, lamented the new administration’s commitment to promoting the “destruction of human lives domestically and in developing nations” and the violation of “human dignity.”
Meanwhile, the women’s pro-life group Culture of Life Africa released a video message directed at Biden, asking him to listen to the African people and defend, rather than destroy, unborn human life.
“Please help us, don’t kill us,” was the plea from one Nigerian businesswoman.
Nigerian Archbishop Ignatius Kaigma told the Catholic magazine Crux in an interview published in early February that for President Biden, a professed “devout Catholic,” to so aggressively pursue the expansion of abortion globally as one of his first acts of office is distinctly striking.
“It is intriguing that one of Biden’s first official acts is to promote the destruction of human lives domestically and in developing nations,” he said, also alluding to President Biden’s vow to reverse the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for most abortions in the U.S.
The prelate, described by Crux as one of the most powerful in Africa, explained that the POTUS should “use his office to prioritize the most vulnerable, including unborn children.” He noted that the Second Vatican Council and “all the Popes down to Pope Francis” have viewed abortion — “the deliberate killing of a child before or after birth” — as a “grievous violation of God’s commandments.”
Kaigma declared: “Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. As Bishops, we have always reiterated that abortion is a direct attack on life that also wounds the woman and undermines the family and above all, it offends God.”
His countrywoman Obianuju Ekeocha, founder and president of Culture for Life Africa, agrees. Ekeocha is a Nigerian-born biomedical scientist and prominent pro-life activist who lives in the U.K.
Earlier this month, as CNSNews reported, Culture for Life Africa released a powerful video in which several pro-life, African women begged the U.S. president not to contribute to the destruction of precious life being conceived on their soil.
The women ranged from bankers and businesswomen to students and lawyers to healthcare professionals and student teachers, yet all echoed the same bold message to President Biden: Please stop contributing to the death of Africa’s unborn children.
“This is a request, actually a plea, to the incoming American president, Joe Biden, to please not fund abortion in African countries.”
“In my culture, we support life from the beginning till the end.”
“I am an African and an African woman. I do not believe in taking life, destroying it, nor killing it. We do not need abortion. Why must abortion be funded, and given priority in my country?”
“Please, we don’t want funding, any form of funding for abortion. We’re not interested, it’s not our priority.”
“God will never bless a nation that destroys its children.”
“Please help us, don’t kill us.”
Their statements highlight the deep cultural divide between many white, progressive First Worlders who view themselves as “saviors” — a word that Biden himself used to describe these efforts as highlighted by Ekeocha in the video — and those who live in the developing nations in need of such “salvation.”
Ekocha pointed to comments Biden made at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund forum for 2020 presidential candidates in 2019 about the Mexico City Policy, which was still in place under President Donald Trump at the time.
“We have over $8 billion dollars in health care assistance around the world, and he’s trying to apply Mexico City standards to that. It’s dead wrong. People are dying around the world,” Biden said of a policy that was preventing funds from being used to end the lives of unborn children.
“We are their saviors around the world,” Biden declared, pointing at himself.
This statement Ekocha found to be “incredible.” She explained in the video:
“So, watching this man who is praising the work of Planned Parenthood, talking about getting rid of the Mexico City Policy altogether, and talking about himself and his pro-abortion peers as being the saviors of people in the developing world, talking about funding abortion overseas. This I find quite horrifying, to be honest, because I know what exactly that means. This means the elimination of my people. This means the death and killing of the most innocent of the African unborn babies. The question now is this: Will President Joe Biden listen to us? Will he recognize the voice of the African people? Will he respect the cries of the heart of the ordinary African person? Or will he just be the neo-colonial master, like many other Western leaders?”
“I hope not,” she concluded. “Please President Joe Biden, listen to the voice of the Africans.”
I believe the words of these pro-life women speak for themselves.
It is so easy for white, American progressives to get so caught up in their noble, shining visions of “helping” the “underdeveloped” nations they see in the pages of National Geographic that it never dawns on them that the inhabitants of such nations might not be interested in their particular brand of “help.”
The truth is, the progressive left is viewing Africa through the lens of secular, humanist values. These values prioritize curbing birth rates and tying women’s rights inextricably with access to abortion as well as make the disturbing assumption that these values are automatically superior to those of the African people themselves.
By what standard?
Moral, pro-life Africans who base their standard of human life on the eternally objective standards of the God they serve are being completely ignored by white “saviors” who have long abandoned such pro-life values and presume to push their own values on the rest of the world.
There are, no doubt, pro-abortion Africans as well, as there are adherents to Islam, traditional African practices, and other beliefs. Why? Because Africa is a huge continent with a wide array of cultural diversity. Yet the pro-abortion community would have you believe Africans are just sitting around, waiting to be rescued from their own ability to reproduce more Africans.
This is condescending, ignorant, and — one could easily argue — highly racist. When are we going to start addressing the systemic racism of forcibly exporting the murder of unborn African children in the womb?
