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Melinda Gates

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 25, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Melinda Gates promoted contraception for women in developing nations yet again in two media opportunities last week.

Gates told online CNN readers in an opinion piece, “Contraceptives are simply one of the best anti-poverty initiatives the world has ever seen.”

Contraceptives are necessary tools for women, she said in her op-ed, and also in her segment produced for TIME’s 2017 list of The Most 100 Influential People in the World. Gates was named to the list last week under the Leaders category.

She opined for CNN about budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration “that would threaten the very progress so many are working so hard to achieve.”

And she said U.S. foreign aid dollars going toward contraception overseas was good global economic investing.

“Another U.S. investment that yields enormous returns for the global economy is contraceptives,” Gates wrote. “When women have access to the tools they need to plan and space their pregnancies, the results are transformative for societies.”

She also endorsed smaller families and dissuaded at-home motherhood in favor of the good of the workforce.

“Smaller families mean women are better able to work outside the home,” Gates stated, “and that families are able to devote more resources to the healthcare, nutrition, and education of each of their children, improving the prospects of the workforce of tomorrow. Contraceptives are simply one of the best anti-poverty initiatives the world has ever seen.”

Culture of Life Africa founder Obianuju Ekeocha responded to Gates’s CNN opinion piece on Twitter, tweeting Tuesday morning, “Population control couched in the smoothest, softest language … ”

American Life League Executive Director Jim Sedlak responded disapprovingly as well.

“Wow! Reading Melinda Gates' statements made me believe I was back in the early 20th century when another so-called champion of the poor, Margaret Sanger, was spouting the same kind of tripe,” he told LifeSiteNews.

Sedlak said Gates’ comments concerning contraceptives and poverty, smaller families and direction of resources, are code words right out of Sanger's playbook.

“What she is really saying is that it is OK to kill the children of the poor, through abortifacient contraception, because their lives don't matter,” Sedlak stated. “After all, she says, it's children that make families poor.”

In the TIME segment, Gates touted contraceptives on her list for making investments “on behalf of women” — to unlock their potential, allow them to fully participate, and “be who they are in the world.”

“I fundamentally believe that contraceptives begin the cycle of unlocking poverty for women,” she stated. “And we know it. We know if from great research and data now.”

Gates advocated women spacing births by at least three years, saying this was best for the health and potential of the child and the mother. But she also cited finances.

“And because of good research we know that the family ends up being wealthier,” Gates ssaid. “So for all those reasons I believe that contraceptives are the right thing.”

Gates and her husband Bill were critical of President Trump’s reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy in January.

Trump’s expanded version of the policy banning U.S. foreign aid dollars from funding abortion overseas also includes “health assistance” programs. It thus prohibits attaching promotion of contraception, sterilization and abortion to authentic aid to the poor.

Groups like Human Life International (HLI), Population Research Institute, American Life League, and Culture of Life Africa have decried Gates’ “family planning” promotion in the developing world.

Pro-life groups have noted how Gates’ extensive pushing of contraception conflicts with her public identification as a Catholic.

But they are also concerned about the dangers of chemical contraception, its overlap with abortion, and for these both countering local cultural values where foreign aid is dispersed.

Gates said in her TIME segment that her experience with women in Africa, India and Bangladesh “became this rallying cry” for contraception, saying, “Women were asking me for it.”

HLI President Father Shenan Boquet wrote in a column that it’s not surprising for Gates to be told what she wants to hear by the poor women introduced to her by her foundation’s grant recipients.

“Yet she ignores the polls that find that contraception is far down the list of concerns of African women,” he said, “behind better education, access to water and better hospitals, and improved legal protections.”

“She never addresses the many studies that show the harm done to women’s health by her preferred method of contraception, the injectable Depo provera,” Father Boquet wrote, “which has been condemned even by many pro-contraception women’s health advocates.”

Gates went on in her TIME appearance to dismiss resistance to her contraception promotion efforts, including those that are based upon religious beliefs.

“Despite anything political,” Gates stated, “despite any religious convictions around the world, we just need to get these tools to women. We have to.”