Monday 18 February 2008

Saving the children?

Save the Children, the international humanitarian charity, has again undermined its cause by promoting an anti-life approach. In a report issued today entitled "Saving children's lives: why equity matters" (PDF 428KB) Save the Children states that in Sierra Leone "understanding of sexual and reproductive health is low" and so "[i]n 2005 [Save the Children] provided basic reproductive health equipment" to clinics in a particular district. The staff in the Save the Children-supported clinics are now enabled "to discuss a range of health and family planning issues" with pregnant women. The report goes on to claim that "[a] huge reduction in neonatal deaths is also possible if pregnant mothers can access appropriate support, including help to control the timing and frequency of pregnancies....The effective use of contraception can help mothers to control their fertility and space their pregnancies in a way that enhances their health and that of their babies." We can say a number of things in relation to this report:
  • Save the Children is not pro-life - indeed, as detailed in SPUC's charity bulletin (PDF 123KB), it supports the ideology of abortion;
  • 'Reproductive health', 'family planning' and 'contraception' are terms which often entail abortion operations and/or abortion-inducing birth control drugs and devices;
  • Even where the particular methods of artificial birth control used are not themselves abortifacient, the mass provision of artificial birth control is accompanied by a rise in abortion - the killing of children - as leaders of the pro-abortion lobby acknowledge;
  • Population control endangers a country's prosperity by depleting its best natural resource - people - and money that could otherwise be spent on primary health care.