Marie Stopes is killing Africa with your money

Jonathan Saunders comments on a recent documentary exposing the reality of Marie Stopes International’s activity in Uganda.

You can make a lot of money from killing children. Especially if you kill a lot of them. Simon Cooke, CEO of Marie Stopes international (MSI), got paid £420,755 in 2015.

MSI is a UK-based organization that works in 37 countries around the world. Its main business is abortion, with its 2015 Annual Report boasting 3.4 million ‘safe abortion and post abortion care services’. Quite what ‘safe abortion’ is remains a mystery.

MSI’s UK practices have recently come under fire from the Care Quality Commission after an investigation revealing over 2,600 safety flaws including the pre-signing of abortion forms, inadequate care for women, staff failing to explain the abortion procedure, and so on.

MSI is also active in Africa. In most of these (16) African countries, abortion is not legal as majority of African populations consider abortion to be an attack on the life of the unborn.

A small pro-life organisation in the UK, Culture of Life Africa, has recently produced a short documentary (16 mins) about MSI’s activity in Uganda, which is well worth watching. It includes an interview with a former MSI employee. Abortion is illegal in Uganda.

The former clinic manager says that:

• MSI is performing illegal abortions in Uganda
• The conditions are appalling; nurses turn up the radio so the sound of mothers screaming cannot be heard outside
• Babies aborted before 14 weeks are flushed down the toilet
• Babies aborted after 14 weeks are thrown in the pit latrine (open sewage)
• When USAID came to inspect the clinic, MSI told the staff to hide the abortion equipment

These are very serious allegations.

One might reasonably wonder who would be willing to fund an operation like this? Where does the money come from?

Not from the United States. This week President Trump signed an executive order banning all taxpayer funding of overseas abortion. The US taxpayer will not fund abortion internationally for the next four years. So is MSI going to struggle to make ends meet?

Well, not really. In 2015 MSI received just over £151m in grants:

• £23.5m from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
• £12m from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
• £4.5m from the United Nations
• £1m from the European Union
• Various other amounts from international organisations and anonymous donors

But the biggest grant given to MSI in 2015 was from the UK’s own Department for International Development (DfID). Just under £46.5m of British taxpayers’ money went to MSI. And in 2016 just under £44.5m went from the public purse to the abortion giant.

It is a sign of the times that ‘international development’ now consists in breaking a country’s laws, muffling the sound of its mothers screaming and killing its children. But the bigger question is, why are we willing to fund this?

Even more, is anyone willing to act? The Bible says:

Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering towards slaughter.
If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?
(Proverbs 24:11-12)

We can’t say we didn’t know.

Now is the time to follow the United States’ example and defund MSI.