Last month, I reviewed Nigerian pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha’s powerful new documentary Strings Attached, which details how population control activists are utilizing foreign aid to wage war on the fertility of African women. One organization that Ekeocha spends a good portion of her film exposing is the UK-based abortion provider Marie Stopes, which operates in 37 countries—and provides illegal abortions in many of them.
In fact, Marie Stopes got banned from Zambia for performing illegal abortions, and Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland refused to answer questions from Conservative MP Garnett Genuis as to whether Canada’s funding for Marie Stopes was used for illegal abortions (which rather answered the question.) Now, Kenya has finally cracked down on Marie Stopes, as well. From the BBC:
The Medical Practitioners Board says it made the decision after investigating complaints that the group’s adverts were promoting abortion. Abortion is illegal in Kenya unless a mother’s health is in danger.
Marie Stopes says it operates within the law, offering counselling services including post-abortion care.
The head of the government agency in charge of approving adverts, Ezekiel Mutua, welcomed the ban and accused the previous US government of causing moral decay in Kenya by promoting abortion.
A letter sent from the Medical Practitioners Board to Marie Stopes on Wednesday says: “Marie Stopes Kenya is hereby directed to immediately cease and desist offering any form of abortion services in all its facilities within the republic.”
Marie Stopes was also instructed to file a weekly report on all services rendered in its facilities for 60 days…The board says it acted on complaints from, among others, Ann Kioko, campaign manager at pro-life campaign group CitizenGo Africa, and Ezekiel Mutua, chief executive officer of the Kenya Film Classification Board.
Mr Mutua said adverts Marie Stopes were running had “not been approved by the board and they were unprofessional – they were almost making it look cool to have an abortion”.
“Democrats pushed the pro-abortion view and the pro-LGBT stance on us – an agenda that is alien to our own culture,” he said.
It is interesting to see that in the wake of this move, the Kenyan government has been roundly criticized for chastising an organization that is breaking the law in that country to abort African babies. The progressive Left likes to claim that it respects the rule of law, but the truth is that they are quite willing to dismiss any law that does not cohere with their worldview. Their response to back-alley abortions is not to recognize that something should be done to respond to the circumstances that lead to these abortions, but rather to insist that abortion be legalized, or to state that organizations like Marie Stopes are justified in performing illegal abortions in response.
In the meantime, of course, organizations like Marie Stopes are making a killing.
For anyone interested, my book on The Culture War, which analyzes the journey our culture has taken from the way it was to the way it is and examines the Sexual Revolution, hook-up culture, the rise of the porn plague, abortion, commodity culture, euthanasia, and the gay rights movement, is available for sale here.
