A 25-year-old Nigerian man was brought before the Chief Magistrates’ Court in Abuja, Nigeria on Monday to face charges for conspiracy and for performing a forced abortion on his girlfriend.
The woman, identified by a Nigerian news service as Janet Onah, reported the incident to the Asokoro Police in Abuja on February 21 according to the prosecuting attorney. The prosecutor said the accused, Idris Oke, and a pharmacist deceitfully administered drugs to Ms. Onah causing her miscarriage on February 18.
“The pharmacist administered some drugs to her on the pretence that it would make her sleep,’’ Philips Akogwu, the prosecutor, said. Mr. Akogwu said the accused was in violation of section 232 of the Nigerian Penal Code which states:
Whoever voluntarily causes a woman with child to miscarry shall, if such miscarriage be not caused in good faith for the purpose of saving the life of the woman, be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to fourteen years or with fine or with both.
Mr. Oke admitted to the judge that he took Ms. Onah to the pharmacist to procure the drugs, but denied that she went against her will. The chief magistrate granted Mr. Oke bail in the sum of N250,000 ($1,585 USD) and adjourned the case to March 26 for a hearing.
Ms. Onah was admitted to the National Hospital after suffering the miscarriage.
Nigerian pro-life leader Chizoba Nnagboh, Human Life International (HLI) country director in Nigeria, said he was not surprised by the actions of Mr. Oke given the illegality of abortion in most cases and the cultural animus towards abortion in Nigeria.
“Perpetrators of this grievous crime [of abortion] do so clandestinely not only for fear of prosecution but for fear of social ostracism as abortion is a taboo under Nigerian culture,” he said.
Mr. Nnagboh also expressed concern about the attack on Nigeria’s culture by wealthy Western nations who are heavily pushing for the acceptance of abortion.
“U.N. agencies, powerful nations and international organizations have continued to push for the legalization of abortion on demand in Nigeria through ‘reproductive health’ and other euphemisms,” he said.
The concerns of Mr. Nnagboh and other pro-life leaders are not without justification. United Nations figures released last May projecting significant increases in the population growth of countries like Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, put Nigeria in the crosshairs of population control advocates.
Shortly after the U.N. released the May 2011 figures, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, special advisor to the U.N. Secretary General, expressed that he was “really scared” about population growth in Nigeria, and suggested Nigeria embrace a version of China’s harsh one child policy.
“I am really scared about population explosion in Nigeria,” Sachs said. “It is not healthy. Nigeria should work towards attaining a maximum of three children per family.”
United States Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the Africa, Global Health and Human Rights subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that adopting such a policy would be “disastrous” for Nigeria in response to Mr. Sachs’ statement. The congressman also confirmed that such a plan for Nigeria has been talked about before.
“I think two years ago the U.N. Population Fund and the State Family Planning Council of China invited the health ministers and other high officials of every sub-Saharan Africa (country) to Beijing for about a week … and fed them the line that, ‘If you want economic growth, get rid of the children, follow China’s lead,’” Rep. Smith said during a 2011 Capitol Hill news conference.
As for the motivations behind these population control activities, Rep. Smith quoted Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger in her book The Pivot of Civilization, in which Sanger asserts that it is “cruel to help and to assist an indigent woman (to) have a child because you get more of those useless breeders.”
“It is eugenist and racist to the core and yet that’s the mindset being exported by China to Nigeria,” Rep. Smith said during the press conference. ”Now UNFPA has at its helm Nigeria. So you can be sure that very anti-human rights policy of China will have additional favor because UNFPA has enabled it right from the beginning and now they are targeting Africa.”
LifeNews.com Note: Reprinted with permission from Human Life International’s World Watch forum. Adam Cassandra is a Communications Specialist at Human Life International.
