OTTAWA, October 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canada’s government says it has “no records” indicating exactly what type of “sexual and reproductive health” and “family planning” services it is paying the International Planned Parenthood Federation to perform as part of its $6 million grant running from 2012-2014.
The news has a pro-life researcher concerned that the government is failing to carry out due diligence to ensure that its grant to the world’s largest abortion provider fulfills a 2010 pledge that it would not fund abortion overseas.
“When the government spends our money, you'd think they'd know what they're spending it on, right? Wrong,” said Patricia Maloney on her blog Run With Life.
The contract for the three-year grant, which began January 2012, affirms the government’s pledge. “Abortion services will not be funded” it states, because “on-request abortion is illegal” in the five countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan, and Tanzania — targeted for the aid.
Shortly after the government announced the funding in 2011, however, pro-life Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott pointed out that abortion is not, in fact, illegal in Bangladesh, and IPPF’s affiliate in the country carries out thousands of abortions a year. According to an annual report for 2007, for example, the organization performed 3,131 early abortions through a procedure referred to as “menstrual regulation,” which is legal.
When Maloney submitted Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests to the government to make sure that unborn babies in the third world were not being aborted through taxpayer funding, she was surprised by information she did not receive.
Maloney was handed IPPF’s progress report revealing that along with distributing oral contraceptive services and “sterilization” services, “Approved Activities” performed in the five countries included “gynaecological services”, “other SRH [sexual and reproductive health] medical services”, and “family planning services”.
When Maloney submitted another ATIP to see a breakdown of what she thought were suspiciously worded activities, she received the following response: “Please be advised that after a through search of our file, no records related to your request exist.”
“How do we know they aren't sneaking in abortion services into those categories, or giving advice to a woman to obtain an abortion? We don’t, not unless we can see the breakdowns,” said Maloney.
Maloney said that the “no records” response came as a “huge surprise”.
“How can DFATD satisfy it's due diligence responsibility if they don't insist that the organization to which they dole out our money, provides evidence to DFATD, on exactly how our money is being spent?” she said.
The $6 million IPPF grant was to be used to advance the priorities of the Muskoka Initiative, which aims at improving maternal health and reducing child mortality. The contract specified that IPPF was to use the money to provide an “integrated package of sexual and reproductive health services” that included contraception, care to expectant mothers and mothers who have delivered children, and prevention of sexually transmitted disease.
Until 2011, the Canadian government funded Marie Stopes International, a major abortion and sterilization provider that candidly admitted to performing illegal abortions in the third world countries in which it was stationed.
“We do illegal abortions all over the world,” admitted Paul Cornellisson, the South African Program Director for Marie Stopes International, in a 2007 video.
The nation of Zambia, with a restrictive abortion law, banned Marie Stopes International from performing abortions altogether last year after discovering that it had committed 490 illegal abortions in five months.
IPPF, besides being the world’s largest abortion provider, is known for its aggressive tactics aimed at dismantling abortion laws in developing countries where abortion is prohibited, with the goal of having abortion enshrined in law as a universal human right.
Maloney said that she will continue pursuing her investigation until she can be assured that Canadian tax-generated money is not going to pay for the execution of unborn children in the third world by abortion.