Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan for the Canadian government to spend $650 million on sexual and reproductive health and “rights” worldwide. This approach to foreign aid could result in Canada financing battles against pro-life legislation in multiple countries, reports The Globe and Mail. For example, under Trudeau’s plan, Canada reportedly could finance pro-abortion advocacy groups attempting to overturn pro-life laws in other countries.
International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau confirmed this: “Advocacy is included in our initiative, so yes, we will support local groups and international groups who advocate for women’s rights, including abortion.”
While Canada is one of the most pro-abortion countries in the world, legally speaking, not all Canadians are on board with Trudeau’s intent to use taxpayer dollars to push Canadian “values” on other countries.
Following Trudeau’s announcement, Dr. Robert Walley, founder and executive director of MaterCare International and emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, suggested that instead of pouring millions into pushing abortion on other countries, Canada could contribute to providing women in developing nations with improved pre-natal, birth, and post-natal care. Walley says that leaders like Trudeau who seek to glorify and spread abortion apparently “don’t realize that mothers are women, too.”
Bishop Douglas Crosby of Hamilton, Ontario, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined Walley in calling out the Prime Minister:
Such a policy is a reprehensible example of Western cultural imperialism and an attempt to impose misplaced but so-called Canadian ‘values’ on other nations and people.
It exploits women when they are most in need of care and support and tragically subverts true prenatal health care. It negates our country’s laudable efforts to welcome refugees and offer protection to the world’s homeless, when the youngest of human lives will instead be exterminated and the most vulnerable of human beings discarded as unwanted human tissue.
Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto agreed, calling it “arrogant for powerful, wealthy nations to dictate what priorities developing countries should embrace.” Collins also took issue with Trudeau’s suggestion that without abortion, women are not able to be empowered or fulfill their potential. He suggested using the funds to pay for malaria vaccines for women and girls in developing countries or to build schools to educate “future female leaders,” rather than using the money to buy pro-abortion legislation in foreign countries.
Mike Schouten, director of Canadian pro-life group We Need a Law, said that rather than “forcing a pro-abortion ideology” on the world, Western nations would do well to provide assistance to developing nations through medicine, clean water, and maternal care.
But sadly, many pro-abortion politicians — apparently including Trudeau — would rather use funds to push liberal ideology on other countries than to provide them with practical aid, focused on the real health and educational needs of women and girls.
