Kenya Doctor Aborts Despite Law
Abortions are being openly performed in Kenya, despite laws which prohibit them. The New York Times recently reported on Dr. Solomon Orero, an OB/GYN in Kenya who not only performs abortions himself, but trains other medical professionals (not necessarily doctors) to do so as well. The law in Kenya prohibits abortion and calls for 14 years imprisonment for those who perform abortions. Dr. Orero uses a loophole in the law to protect himself from punishment. The law allows abortion to preserve the life of the mother. In Orero’s twisted logic, he is saving a woman’s life by stopping her from attempting to perform a dangerous abortion on herself.
Orero’s training program is funded by the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health in California. The Pacific Institute for Women’s Health is an organization dedicated to providing contraception and abortion to women and girls around the world. In addition to training medical personnel to perform illegal abortions in Kenya, the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health works to increase access to the abortifacient “emergency contraception” in the United States, as well as other nations, including El Salvador, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil. On their website they state that “Raising awareness of EC in El Salvador is particularly important since its abortion laws are the most restrictive in Latin America.”
The list of organizations providing funding for the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health reads like a who’s who list of population control funders. The Pacific Institute for Women’s Health has received grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
(Marc Lacey, “Despite a Ban, Teaching Safe Abortions in Kenya,” New York Times, 17 February 2002, quoted in LSN.ca; Pacific Institute for Women’s Health website www.piwh.org)
Bush & Abstinence
Although President George W. Bush understands the importance of teaching young people about abstinence, his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, is advocating the use of condoms to halt the spread of AIDS. In remarks on MTV, Powell stated, “Forget about taboos, forget about conservative ideas with respect to what you should tell young people about. It’s the lives of young people that are put at risk by unsafe sex. And, therefore, protect yourself.” When questioned by an Italian Catholic about his opinion of the Catholic Church’s position on condoms, Powell said, “I not only support their use, I encourage their use among people who are sexually active.” Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer summarized President Bush’s position stating. “The President continued to believe that abstinence and abstinence education is the most effective way to prevent AIDS, to prevent unwanted pregnancy.”
(Peter Slevin and Ceci Connolly, “Powell Urges Condom Use,” Washington Post, 15 February 2002)
Valentine Vasectomies
For most people St. Valentine’s Day is a day to show your loved ones how much you care with gifts of flowers, jewelry, and chocolate. But this Valentine’s Day the folks at Marie Stopes International had another idea. They took advantage of the occasion by offering a valentine vasectomy sale. Those who visited Marie Stopes website from February 7–14 were able to download and print a voucher offering them a £65 discount on the normal price of £265 for a vasectomy. The website introduces the concept of a valentine vasectomy with the headline “Looking for an alternative to flowers or chocolate?” and explains that “history, legend and literature abound with tales of men and women who made great sacrifices for love. In keeping with this tradition, Marie Stopes International is providing all you gentlemen out there with the chance to prove your love through one small sacrifice: taking up the Valentine Vasectomy Voucher offer,” The voucher itself is in the form of a valentine card for a loved one. It reads, “To show you how much I love you, I promise to book myself in for a Valentine Vasectomy at our nearest Marie Stopes Centre. All my love.” All a man had to do was fill in the blanks and schedule a vasectomy before June 1.
If the visitor to the website was a woman (no, they didn’t offer Valentine tubal ligations), she could download her own version of the valentine vasectomy voucher. This one instructs her beloved “to show me how much you love me, promise to book yourself in for a Valentine Vasectomy.”
Readers of PRI Review are aware that a vasectomy is not the “simple fix” its proponents claim it to be, In addition to permanently preventing them from having children, many men suffer a host of side effects, including a lifetime of chronic pain, after a vasectomy (see “Problems with the Quick Fix,” PRI Review, July/August 2001).
(Marie Stopes International, mariestopes.org.uk, quoted in LSN.ca, 13 February 2002)
