WeeklySA_AdminAGENDA: Pro-life United States-based group accuses the World Health Organization of pursuing an agenda to “decimate African population through abortion, birth control and sterilisation” strategies…
By Agnes Aineah and WSAM Correspondent
In a scathing attack on the World Health Organization (WHO), the African chapter of the anti-abortionist Human Life International (HLI) has criticised the body for promoting strategies that seek to “decimate the African population and undermine the family institution on the continent”.
In the US-based organisation’s message ahead of the annual World Health Day 2024 (April 7) to be commemorated on Sunday, HLI’s Emil Hagamu accused the WHO of having been long engaged in intentional population control targeting the population on the continent, through “contraceptive imperialism”. HLI is a Catholic, pro-life non-profit organisation with missions in over 100 countries.
Hagamu said “through abortion, birth control and sterilisation, Africa’s population has long been intentionally targeted for decimation”.
According to HLI, the WHO would not likely be focusing on disease prevention or promoting healthy lifestyles on World Health Day 2024.
The pro-life HLI said in a report shared with ACI Africa that the powerful United Nations agency charged with promoting global health had abandoned objective medical practice in favour of “emotion-based medicine”, going so far as to state that “men can get pregnant.”
Dr Brian Clowes, HLI’s Director of Education and Research, said problems with the WHO “run far deeper than the disorganisation and politicisation,” for which it had been criticised. “The WHO is committed to reducing population by whatever means possible,”
Clowes said, adding “This organization is no longer connected with medical reality. It is all-in on transgenderism, even saying that men can and even should have abortions.”
Clowes found it baffling that the WHO was demanding the right to censor and control anything on the internet regarding health that it considered “misinformation.” The WHO, he says, “is a huge proponent of abortion, forced contraceptives, and sterilisation.” Hagamu expressed concern that the WHO was doing everything possible to trample on African family values, adding: “A full 85% of African nations have chosen to protect pre-born children through abortion regulations, because the people of Africa consider human life sacred and believe that it is to be welcomed with joy, respected, and defended.”
According to WHO statistics, each year, in developed regions, it is estimated that 30 women die for every 100 000 unsafe abortions. In developing regions, that number rises to 220 deaths per 100 000 unsafe abortions. Estimates from 2012 indicate that in developing countries alone, 7 million women per year were treated in hospital facilities for complications of unsafe abortion.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the death rate from unsafe abortion in Africa is 110/100,000 live births, the highest in the world. In Africa, 99% of abortions are unsafe resulting in one maternal death per 150 cases, according to the international BioMedCentral journal.
George Wirnkar, also of HLI’s African chapter, agreed that the WHO was “delivering more harm than good”.
The Cameroonian-born HLI’s Director of West Africa explained that, because the WHO persisted in treating all young people as “sexually active,” the United Nations’ presumptive “medical” agency damaged the mindset and physical integrity of today’s youth and harmed their future prospects for a healthy, happy adulthood.
“WHO is a known advocate for the liberalisation of abortion and the watering down of existing pro life laws,” said Wirnkar, adding, “The so-called ‘safe abortion’ mantra has done immeasurable damage both in undermining the true meaning and horror of wilful pregnancy termination and the value of every human life, both in my region and worldwide.”
The WHO’s Abortion Care Guideline, issued in March 2022 stated that “cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary, gender-fluid and intersex individuals” were to be included in those who “may require abortion care.”
In its World Health Day 2024 message, the WHO said the right to health of millions is increasingly coming under threat across the globe, adding diseases and disasters loomed large as causes of death and disability.
Conflicts are devastating lives, causing death, pain, hunger and psychological distress. The burning of fossil fuels is simultaneously driving the climate crisis and taking away our right to breathe clean air, with indoor and outdoor air pollution claiming a life every 5 seconds.
To address these types of challenges, the WHO said in a statement theme for World Health Day 2024 was “My health, my right”. It said it had found that at least 140 countries recognise health as a human right in their constitution. Yet countries were not passing and putting into practice laws to ensure their populations are entitled to access health services. This underpinned the fact that at least 4.5 billion people — more than half of the world’s population — were not fully covered by essential health services in 2021.
“This year’s theme was chosen to champion the right of everyone, everywhere to have access to quality health services, education, and information, as well as safe drinking water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working and environmental conditions, and freedom from discrimination,” the WHO statement added. – ACI Africa
