LONDON, England, July 14, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Canada’s international development minister has defended the Justin Trudeau Liberal government’s aggressive pro-abortion international aid policy by claiming abortion is “a tool to end poverty.”
International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau was responding to criticism of Canada’s bishops, who have denounced the Liberals for putting sexual and reproductive rights “at the core” of their foreign policy.
But Bibeau, speaking to CTV News from the Family Planning Summit in London, countered that “contraception and even abortion is only a tool to end poverty.”
“We … have to give [women] the control over their lives. So we shouldn’t look at contraception as the objective,” she said.
“This is not the objective. This is only a tool to reduce poverty and inequality and to make an impact in terms of development and peace and security in the world.”
The Canadian bishops blasted the Liberals in a July letter for their “attempt to insinuate abortion advocacy in Canadian foreign policy” and for putting “political ideology” ahead of the genuine needs in the developing world.
In contrast to the $650 million the Liberals have earmarked to promote and provide abortion and contraception overseas, they committed only $119.25 million to alleviating the impending famine in east Africa, the bishops wrote.
The United Nations has described the food shortages in Yemen, South Sudan, northeast Nigeria, and Somalia as “the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II, with 20 million people at risk of starvation,” they pointed out.
As if to underscore their point, Bibeau announced at the London Summit the first tranche of the $650 million: a disbursement of $241.5 million to abortion promoting agencies such as International Planned Parenthood, Marie Stopes and the United Nations Population Fund.
Indeed, the Liberal media backgrounder claims this as “leadership on sexual and reproductive health rights.”
About 65 percent of the funding targets Africa, where abortion is generally illegal, which Bibeau realizes.
“It’s still a taboo in many regions,” she told the Globe and Mail.
“So some donors choose to invest in other areas. But even if it’s difficult, we have to do it. Canadians are well-placed to champion this issue – we are welcomed everywhere.”
But Obianuju Ekeocha, the founder of Culture of Life Africa, warns this will change.
“We’ll look back in retrospect and we will see the incredible cultural arrogance of the Canadian Liberal government,” she told LifeSiteNews.
Canada has up to now been highly regarded in Africa because of all the developed nations, it has no history as a “colonial master.”
But under the Trudeau Liberals, Canada is leading a “neo-colonial movement” that pushes abortion and contraception on Africans who don’t want them.
Canada is sending a “clarion call” for other countries to follow its lead in its attempt to “colonize us culturally and ideologically,” the Nigerian-born Ekeocha said.
“Most of the African cultures across the the different African countries consider abortion the destruction of human life,” she told LifeSiteNews.
She also warned that because of the potential for corruption, the “very fabric” of an African nation will be “shredded” by the money Canada is pouring into abortion-promoting organizations such as Marie Stopes.
Ekeocha also disputed contraception is a way out of poverty, telling the BBC that African women neither need nor want contraception or abortion, but the West won’t listen.
“My lifeline out of poverty was education,” Ekeocha told the BBC.
“It was not contraception. And there are so many other women who have walked the same path as I have without ever having to take recourse to some contraception provided by the British government or the United States government” — or the Canadian government.
Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Oyo, Nigeria, also slammed the Liberals for “pushing an imperialist agenda” that “demeans the cherished African respect for the life of the unborn.”
He said Africa would welcome Canada’s aid but that Africans “would never concede to anyone the right to kill another life at whatever stage.”
But Bibeau is adamant the Liberals are on the right track, reiterating to the CTV the “objective is to end poverty” and to do so “we have to reduce inequalities, we have to empower women, we have to defend women’s rights.”
She told CTV that she is contemplating an official response to the bishops.
“It's important to have the conversation with the religious leaders so we can understand each other,” Bibeau said. “We have to have honest conversations with our religious leaders and I'm more than happy to have this discussion in Canada.”
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