As of 2005, abortion is legal in Ethiopia for so many exceptions that it is, practically speaking, abortion on demand — rape, incest, fetal defects (eugenics), the physical or mental health of the mother, economic reasons and reasons of age of the mother. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, an incredible 60,000 women still suffer serious abortion complications every year, and at least 100 of them die. It seems that the population control groups are satisfied merely with legalizing abortion and are not particularly interested in safeguarding the health of Ethiopian women.
“Family planning” billboards are everywhere. The most obnoxious are World Vision’s, which show a starving and unhappy family of seven people, all looking desperate and dressed in rags, gathered around a small table with just a scrap of food on it. People see this blatantly direct propaganda 100 times and begin to believe its almost subliminal message.
Sensations (“Make Your Life Sensational!”) condom ads and billboards are also everywhere in Addis Ababa. One Muslim-operated pharmacy had a life-sized condom poster right inside its door. Amusingly, someone had wrapped a towel around the head of the rather immodestly dressed young lady featured on the poster as a makeshift hajab. This struck me as rather schizophrenic; go ahead and corrupt the women’s sexuality, but make darn sure their heads are covered. DKT International sponsors annual fashion shows in Addis featuring models wearing dresses made entirely out of condoms. All of this is so wildly out of sync with African customs and culture, we can only conclude that these groups are deliberately and consciously attempting to destroy not only African culture and innocence, but the Africans themselves.
I visited a couple of pharmacies, and found that DKT International heavily subsidizes its “Choice” birth control pills, selling them for about 62 cents per cycle. Pharmacists sell them right over the counter with no consultation with a doctor – a practice that would not be tolerated even for a minute in Europe or the USA. USAID and Bayer Pharma have teamed up to sell the “Microgynon” birth control pill for the same price. DKT also sells the “Confidence” abortifacient injection for about 31 cents for three months of sterility, and these are administered by the pharmacist right behind the counter.
Then, of course, there is the most aggressively evil organization on Earth, Marie Stopes International, which makes International Planned Parenthood Federation look like a bunch of blushing virgins. There are a dozen Marie Stopes abortion mills in Addis Ababa, and each is a gigantic abortion factory doing over ten thousand every year.
Abortion still carries a huge stigma in Ethiopia, so the women almost always arrive alone. Unlike in the USA, the men usually standing outside the abortion mills are not husbands or boyfriends; they are pimps. They prey on the women going through the emotional and spiritual assault of abortion, accosting them when they exit the clinic. As a result, prostitution is flourishing in Addis Ababa.
Most obnoxious of all are the touts that Marie Stopes hires to accost women passing by, asking them if they are in need of abortions. These hawkers even tell men that, if their wives or daughters ever need abortion, they can come visit their abortion mill.
Remember that these are the people – Western progressives – who say that we must all respect the customs and cultures of other lands.
The headlong rush of the United Nations and all of the pro-abortion NGOs seems to be directed at “homogenizing” the world so that the people of every nation will think and act just like Europeans or Americans. I have seen this baleful influence hard at work in countries from the Philippines to Papua New Guinea, from Cameroon to Cambodia.
What ever happened to the vaunted “respect for diversity?” Liberals tell us that we must respect “diversity” in terms of bizarre sexual acts and orientations, but what about respect for different cultures?
Unique and colorful cultures and customs all over the world are fast disappearing as everyone — from city dweller to villager, from professional to small farmer — is being forced to conform to the same mold. Even the most benign indigenous practices and customs are being forcibly propelled to extinction. Not only is this becoming a very anti-life world, it is becoming boring as well.
LifeNews.com Note: Brian Clowes is Director of Research and Training for Human Life International. He has travelled to over 50 nations worldwide, has written extensively in various media, and has written ten books, including the recently released Pro-Life Pastoral Handbook. With affiliates and associates in over 100 nations worldwide, HLI is the world’s largest international pro-life organization. Dr. Clowes recently returned from a pro-life missionary trip to Ethiopia. Read the full report here. https://www.hli.org/index.php/mission-field/english-speaking-africa/972-mission-report-ethiopia-june-2011
