Pledge your prayers and fasting for peace in the Holy Land HERE
(LifeSiteNews) — The International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) is pleading for donations in order to assist thousands of women who will be “forced to give birth” in the upcoming months after its only abortion center in Gaza was inadvertently destroyed by Israeli forces on October 8.
The destruction of a @PFPPA clinic in #Gaza after an Israeli airstrike has left an already extremely vulnerable population with even fewer options to receive SRH care without #humanitarian aid.
Make an emergency gift here: https://t.co/LKcWGeSGOL pic.twitter.com/1fwxBABeor
— IPPF Global (@ippf) October 10, 2023
According to the Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association (PFPPA) — an affiliate of the IPPF that was founded in 1964 — their sole abortion facility in the territory became “unusable” following “an Israeli airstrike to an adjacent building.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to these women and their newborn babies,” Ammal Awadallah, Executive Director of the PFPPA stated — notably using the term “newborn babies” instead of “fetuses.”
“Our options to provide referrals to hospitals are decreasing by the hour,” she lamented. “I can’t stress enough how dire the situation is and how desperately we need humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza.”
An IPPF spokesperson told Newsweek that the organization is seeking a “safer location to relocate within Gaza” to continue “delivering services.” Newsweek also reports that the IPPF has abortion centers in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, and Halhoul in the West Bank. The pro-abortion Israel Family Planning Association primarily helps Jewish women who are seeking to kill their unborn children.
While many users on X, formerly Twitter, suggested God’s providence was at work in the building’s destruction, there is nothing that indicates the strike was done to prevent the abortion of pre-born children. Israel itself loosened regulations on abortion following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. in June 2022. The Associated Press reports that abortion is “widely available” in the country and is “far less controversial” than in America.
Dr. Alvaro Bermejo serves as the Director-General of the IPPF. In a statement released earlier this month, he said that the IPPF is “devastated by the loss of civilian lives” in the conflict. Apparently unaware of the irony of his remarks, he also boasted about the “enormous gains” his organization has made in “life-saving sexual and reproductive healthcare” in the Middle East
Father Shenan Boquet, the President of Human Life International, called out Bermejo’s plan to capitalize on the situation.
“The International Planned Parenthood Federation, the United Nations Population Fund, and other large multinational population control agencies are not wasting this opportunity to make their ‘services’ available,” he said in a statement obtained by LifeSite via email.
“These organizations see having full and unhindered access to contraception and abortion as a ‘right’ that must be protected even during a war. As some activists have said, ‘Never waste a good crisis’ in order to implement measures that would not be possible unless the world’s attention is focused elsewhere on war or other tragedy,” he continued.
“Promoting the false doctrine that abortion is a critical need during wartime shows how far we have fallen from a universal respect for every human life – men, women, and children, including those yet born,” he added
Citing a 2016 report by Reuters, Townhall.com states that the Palestinian Health Ministry only permits abortions “if a mother’s life is in danger or if both parents consent following diagnosis of a fetal ‘impairment.’ But abortion due to rape or incest is banned.”
Ammal Awadallah has also said that “basic sexual and reproductive health care commodities, like condoms, are banned in Gaza. The total blockade of Gaza will only worsen the situation for millions of desperate people who are denied their most basic of human rights.”
Multiple reports suggest that the Israeli government has shut off water, electrical, and other basic resources to Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. Israel supporters say this is a needed measure to fight Hamas. Humanitarian organizations have argued that such moves constitute a war crime. As of the publication of this story, at least 2,800 people have been killed on both sides of the conflict, according to the Associated Press.
Pledge your prayers and fasting for peace in the Holy Land HERE