Melinda Gates Blasts Trump For Not Funding Overseas Abortions

By Claire Chretien
Life Site News

Melinda Gates said it's "very troubling" that President Trump reinstated a policy banning U.S. funding of abortion and abortion-promoting organizations overseas.

Just after he was inaugurated, Trump reinstituted the "Mexico City Policy" that prevents government money from going to groups that commit or promote abortion abroad.

Thanks to Trump's pro-life order, "reproductive health organizations" abroad now can't do abortions at all in their facilities – not even with British or French money – if they're receiving U.S. money, Gates complained.

It is "very troubling" that Trump has expanded the policy "very broadly," she said.

Funding "family planning," a euphemism for contraception and often abortion, "has been a very long-standing bipartisan issue," Gates said. She said she and her husband, Bill, "have had many meetings over the last few months on the [Capitol] Hill to explain why this aid, why for just a few dollars a year, you could put a young girl and her family on the path to self-sufficiency."

She called contraception "one of the smartest investments countries can make" and the "most effective anti-poverty tool we have." Gates also said she's "optimistic" Pope Francis will reverse the Catholic Church's moral opposition to contraception.

Gates is in London for a massive pro-contraception conference. Ironically, secular media reports have suggested Gates has a "public personal stance" against abortion. She says she is "personally" against it and that the Gates Foundation doesn't support abortion. The Gates Foundation funds a number of pro-abortion groups, like Planned Parenthood affiliates globally and Marie Stopes International.

On July 11, "World Population Day," African pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha blasted a BBC anchor for using "colonial talk" to argue contraception should be pushed on African women. She called Western countries funding abortions in Africa "ideological colonization."

Website: Life Site News

Nigerian Woman Warns Gates Against Pushing Birth Control in Africa

Melinda Gates speaking at the opening of the London
Summit on Family Planning.
Credit: UK Department for International Development 

By Michelle Bauman

EWTN

A Nigerian woman is asking philanthropist Melinda Gates to reconsider her push for birth control in poor countries, explaining that African women neither need nor want contraception.

“Growing up in a remote town in Africa, I have always known that a new life is welcomed with much mirth and joy,” said Obianuju Ekeocha, a biomedical scientist who is currently working in Canterbury, England.

In an open letter published Aug. 10 by the Catholic Free Press, Ekeocha told Gates that “we, as a society, love and welcome babies.”

“The first day of every baby’s life is celebrated by the entire village,” she said, describing the dancing, clapping and singing that greet each new life.

Ekeocha explained that with all the “challenges and difficulties” that come with living in Africa, people “lament their problems openly.” Yet growing up this environment, she continued, “I have never heard a woman complain about her baby,” either before or after birth.

In the midst of affliction and instability, she said, “our babies are always a firm symbol of hope, a promise of life, a reason to strive for the legacy of a bright future.”

The 32-year-old Nigerian woman voiced dismay at Gates’ recent announcement that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was securing $4.6 billion dollars to promote contraceptives in poor nations, including numerous African countries.

Many of the nations that will be targeted by Gates’ initiative are Catholic countries, where sex is highly regarded as “sacred and private,” she said, explaining that unlike the Western world, many people in Africa are happily complying with Church teaching on sexuality.

But spending billions of dollars to present sex as “a casual pleasure sport” with no consequences will “undoubtedly start to erode and poison the moral sexual ethics that have been woven into our societal DNA by our faith,” she said.

EWTN continues

Blogger's note: This EWTN article was published in August 2012