To my fellow Europeans: if you do not want to pay for abortion, learn from the U.S.

By Marianna Orlandi, Ph.D. | March 14, 2017

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“She Decides,” the pro-abortion fundraising event that took place in Brussels on March 2, was widely reported, including by C-Fam. What is still insufficiently clear, especially to EU taxpayers, is that their (additional) money will be used to perform and promote the killing of the unborn worldwide.

These millions will be used to promote programs that lead to early sexualization of children, promote sexual promiscuity, and advocate for the fullest implementation of the gender theory. The money will go to groups whose “sexual and reproductive health” agenda explicitly includes all of the above.

The EU campaign claims to promote “sexual and reproductive health:” “reducing maternal mortality”, and “saving lives.” Ministers of EU countries have pledged money: “to counter the impact” of Mexico City Policy. But what exactly is that “impact”?

According to the CEO and President of Guttmacher institute, Ann M. Starrs, “this is a new gag rule” and its implications are “not yet totally clear.” Ms. Starr said she is “profoundly outraged and angry,” even though she admitted there is still doubt on who will actually be impacted by the new policy. The answer is: babies. Fewer babies will be aborted by groups receiving U.S. money.

We should not get tired of repeating that Mexico City Policy, is a pro-life policy that prevents U.S. money from funding groups that provide and promotion abortion overseas. It does not cut funds on family planning. It does not cut funds on “prevention of teenage pregnancies,” nor on the fight against “female genital mutilation,” as too many have claimed. It does not condone rape, nor does it defund sex-education programs.

The Mexico City Policy has nothing to do with “increasing” the worldwide demand for contraception (if there is any left), or the numbers of “unsafe” abortions (there is no safe abortion for the baby). The Mexico City Policy defunds exclusively those who think that abortion is the answer to all women’s problems – from obstetric fistula to child marriage. It defunds those who think that motherhood is an obstacle to women’s empowerment.

Under this policy, “sexual and reproductive health” providers must detach themselves from providing or promoting abortion, if they want to be eligible for U.S. funding.

What Reagan understood when he first enacted this policy is that you cannot feed a belly without nourishing the whole body. There is only one way to make sure that public money is not sponsoring abortion abroad: defund those who either perform it, or advocate for it. This is what the so-called “global gag rule” does. Americans should be proud of it. Europeans should follow their example.

Brussels’ politicians and bureaucrats, instead, argue that the EU can still fund the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Marie Stopes International (MSI), the world’s largest abortion providers, without funding abortion. Perhaps, they underestimate what their “money can buy”.

Even if IPPF promised not to invest EU money in abortion, as required by EU provisions, these millions will unavoidable fuel all its advocacy programs, its institutional apparatus, and its lobbying capacities. EU funds already helped abortion groups gain power, up to a point where any European teenager learns how to get an abortion before understanding what love and marriage mean. I know it well, as that is where I was born and raised. It has been true for me too.

Something particularly striking about this “She Decides” event was the boldness of the attacks directed at the U.S. administration. EU Ministers, along with representatives of international organizations, have vilified the (democratically) elected U.S. President, and its pro-life majority, as I elsewhere reported. They condemned a pro-life policy without shame.

The French Minister of Families and Children, Laurence Rossignol, proud of France’s new ban on “misleading” prolife information, advocated for the global decriminalization of the practice, and said that there is a “taboo around sex,” and it must be broken.

I wonder what taboo Ms. Rossignol was referring to: is it sexual promiscuity? Is it abortion? Is it children having sex?

In his intervention, IPPF’s Director General, Mr. Tewodros Melesse mentioned an “interest coincidence.” Fifty years ago, he says, “eight angry women” founded IPPF. In his view, however, that was a sad anniversary, as one of the founding countries was not represented: the United States. He wondered what Margaret Sanger, one of those eight “angry women,” would be saying in her grave.

As far as I know, Americans should be proud of Sanger’s disapproval. They should be happy to disappoint a feminist who embraced the eugenic movement and campaigned for “a pure race.”

The founders of IPPF were truly “angry women,” and they directed their anger to the most vulnerable and defenseless children of God: the unborn.

According to the head of UNFPA, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Trump’s decision “gets us back to pre-1994.”

As many know, 1994 was the time of the Cairo Conference on Population and Development agreement. It was the time when sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights made their official entrance in the international arena. These terms include abortion, by definition, at least where it is legal. We should all wish Osotimehin was right.

Unfortunately, not even the Mexico City Policy can bring us back to before Cairo. In order to eliminate abortion, every single country must step up and must speak again about maternal and child health care.

Every single mother must tell her daughter that life is a gift, not a choice. In each school, sex education programs should teach children about the complexity, the beauty, and the importance of protecting their own bodies.

I recall an anecdote from Law School graduation. The title of my final thesis was “Reproductive health and the right to life.” I vividly remember my mum’s face when she heard these terms. She looked at me as if I was speaking nonsense. In 2008, not too long ago, those words did not exist in our common vocabulary.

Still today, we do not need them.

Once we get rid of these terms, EU governments who want to sponsor abortion will need to say it openly. Taxpayers will then have a choice, at least during elections, as Americans already do.

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