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Chrystia Freeland

OTTAWA, June 11, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Canada’s foreign minister won’t say if she believes Justin Trudeau’s government is or is not funding illegal activity by giving money to abortion giant Marie Stopes International.

Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland dodged the question from Conservative MP Garnett Genuis last Wednesday, instead asserting her belief in abortion — not just for Canadian women, but for women everywhere.

Genuis quizzed Freeland on Canada’s funding of the scandal-plagued Marie Stopes International during the June 6 meeting of the standing committee on foreign affairs and international development.

“The budget gave $5 million to Marie Stopes International. Is the government confident that Marie Stopes International does not break the law in countries where it operates?” noted Genuis, Conservative shadow minister for foreign affairs.

“Let me be very clear on the direction of that question. We have a feminist prime minister. I am a feminist, and I am proud that we have a feminist foreign policy,” responded Freeland.

“I that it is an absolute right of women to control their own bodies,” added the minister.

“I believe that sexual and reproductive health for women is their right. I believe that is a right for Canadian women and I am proud to stand up to women around the world to have that right,” Freeland went on.

“We, sadly, are living in a time when the sexual and reproductive rights of women in some countries in the world is limited,” asserted Freeland.

“That is wrong, and as you know, Canada has stepped its support for sexual and reproductive health for women in parts to fill that void.”

Genuis’ question was very much on point, given Marie Stopes International’s history.

In a 2007 video recorded by the Population Research Institute, Paul Cornelissen, the South African Program Director for Marie Stopes International, admitted, “We do illegal abortions all over the world.”

In 2004, the Marie Stopes Kenya clinic, sponsored by the UN Population Fund, admitted to providing illegal abortions to Kenyan women.

In 2012, Zambia banned Marie Stopes International from the country after it discovered the abortion agency had committed 490 illegal abortions in five months.

And in January 2017, the UK-based Culture of Life Africa released Killing Africa, a 16-minute video documenting that Marie Stopes International had been performing illegal abortions in Uganda, dumping the bodies of aborted babies in open sewers, and concealing this practice from the U.S. foreign aid Agency USAID.

Marie Stopes is reported the largest abortion provider in the UK, responsible for annually killing 60,000 to 70,000 British children in utero.

It’s also one of the largest abortion providers in the developing world, where it promotes and provides abortion and abortifacient contraception in 37 countries.

When Genuis asked Freeland his question a second time, the minister accused the Alberta Tory MP of making “insinuations” and pivoted once more to a woman’s “right” to choose.

“I again want to address the underlying point which is being insinuated and pushed there, and I would like Canadians to be very aware of the tendency of that question,” Freeland stated.

“I would be delighted to have the Conservative Party, rather than make insinuations, if you are opposed to abortion, if you want to limit a woman’s right to choose in Canada or around the world, please come out and say it clearly.”

International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau subsequently lauded Freeland, by retweeting an MP’s praise for “seeing through the insidious line of questioning” of Genuis.

But Matt Wojciechowski, who represents Campaign Life Coalition at the United Nations, says Freeland and the Trudeau administration are completely out of touch with the rest of the world.

“In parts of the world where abortion is illegal, it is illegal because that’s what the people and their government’s desire. If they wanted to legalize abortion, they have the means to do so,” he told LifeSiteNews.

Freeland’s response is “unbelievably arrogant and condescending, but it shows how determined she is to spread these radical ideologies worldwide. This is ideological colonization,” Wojciechowski said.

“What’s sad isn’t that many countries around the world limit abortion, as Freeland states, but that our Canadian government is using our tax dollars to fund organizations that break laws, kill preborn children and engage in advocacy work to liberalize current laws,” he added.

“There is nothing ‘feminist,’ or empowering to women about killing their unborn children.”