Last week the Canadian government announced tens of millions of dollars of new maternal and child care grants. While the Muskoka Initiative money disbursed to date by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) doesn’t appear to fund abortion services directly, substantial sums are being channeled to a prominent pro-abortion group.
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) will receive $6 million (Canadian) over the next three years to fund sex education and contraception programs in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan, and Tanzania. Planned Parenthood is the world’s largest private abortion provider. The decision to fund IPPF was approved by the cabinet minister responsible for CIDA, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda.
“The government claims that the money is going only to countries where abortion isn’t legal, and it’s not going to be used for abortion, but knowing IPPF, which pocket you put it in doesn’t matter,” Jim Hughes, national president of Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition, commented to Lifesite News on Sept. 23. “It just frees up other monies to go along with the baby-killing.”
Also troubling to pro-lifers is a $40-million CIDA grant to the United National Population Fund (UNFPA) to fund new maternity clinics in Haiti. Some of this money will be dedicated to “family planning” services. While UNFPA insists it does not include provision of abortion in its own definition of “family planning,” the term often is interpreted by local “family planning” providers as including abortion.
The support of CIDA bureaucrats for abortion as a component of maternal care is a matter of public record. In briefing notes submitted to Canada’s international co-operation minister in January 2010, CIDA stated that provision of “safe abortion services (when abortion is legal)” should be an element of the maternal and child health initiative.
Pro-lifers cited another flaw in last week’s CIDA grant announcements. Canadian-based Matercare International was once again denied funding on “technical” grounds, even though its programs appear to be tailor-made for CIDA support.
Matercare International founder Dr. Rob Walley commented that the latest funding announcements are problematic for two reasons. Along with funding some groups that have a “reproductive health” mentality that sanctions abortion, CIDA devoted too little money to help starving mothers in drought-stricken regions of eastern Africa.
Said Dr. Walley, “Funding has gone to the ‘big’ agencies and there is little or nothing for Kenya or projects such as ours which are right in the middle of the drought area.”
CIDA declined to reply to questions submitted this week by the Friday Fax regarding its maternal and child care funding allocations.
The Canadian funding decisions are a prime example of why Dr. Walley has proposed a Catholic Church-funded “Marshall Plan for Mothers.” Given the reluctance of leading funding agencies like CIDA to give money to organizations like Matercare International, supporters of this plan argue, Catholics must take the lead themselves in providing morally acceptable, quality medical care to impoverished mothers.