LONDON — Melinda Gates, the wife of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, has launched a massive campaign to expand artificial contraception and abortion across the globe in direct opposition to the Catholic faith she claims as her own.
One of the world’s wealthiest women, Gates paired with Andrew Mitchell, the United Kingdom’s secretary for the Department for International Development (DfID), to raise $4 billion in order to extend “affordable, life-saving contraceptive services to an additional 120 million women in the world’s poorest countries by 2020.”
The London Summit on Family Planning they presided over on July 11 included 260 delegates from governments, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and abortion groups, including International Planned Parenthood Federation, Population Services International and Marie Stopes International. Also on hand were representatives from pharmaceutical giants Merck, Pfizer, Bayer and others most involved in chemical contraception.
“We are bringing far more resources to this effort than ever before,” Gates declared. The universal desire of mothers to give their children “every good thing” can only be fulfilled when access to contraceptives is universal, she added.
A morning marathon plenary session followed, during which delegates pledged their commitment and their country’s money to global family planning, one after another.
Anuradha Gupta, India’s minister of Health and Family Welfare, vowed her government would make contraception services available “in every nook and corner of our large country.” Senegal and Indonesia both committed to promote “permanent” methods of contraception.
“Indonesia pledged to increase its commitment by 100% and Senegal by 200%, and Nigeria will increase its commitment to family planning spending by 300%,” Nigeria’s health minister declared to applause.
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Rajiv Shah said the United States made its commitments to family planning clear as soon as the Obama administration took office, directing $640 million annually towards international family-planning programs that reach 83 million women.
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron addressed the summit, declaring that family planning “is absolutely fundamental to any hope of tackling poverty in our world.”
“Having fewer children to support helps the economy to grow,” he added, echoing the themes that had been highlighted all day.
He said Britain would double its commitment to “reproductive health” to $800 million over eight years, which would help 24 million women and girls, preventing an unintended pregnancy every 10 seconds and saving a woman’s life every two hours.
The audience stood to applaud.
Off Script
Cameron also showed himself to be taking a side against the Church when he answered a question from a delegate.
“How are we going to pressure the Holy See to stop influencing Africa not to allow contraception?” the delegate demanded. “I think it is an outrage that we still have to put up with these totally unnecessary, outdated and unacceptable practices.”
Cameron had to wait for applause for the delegate's question to die down before responding, “Make the arguments that we have what works in the world and nothing will be able to stand in the way.”
There were a few minor departures from the main theme of the conference. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, for example, said his country was only donating $5 million because it was spending a lot more on infrastructure. “How can you have development without electricity and roads?” he asked.
The Korean ambassador to Britain, Kyo Hu Choo, was introduced to represent the country with a 100% contraceptive prevalence rate as a “model for the world.” But he began by saying, “Now we suffer from very low birth rate. ... Perhaps we overdid it.”
At the summit’s end, Gates announced that she and her husband had decided to double their donations to contraceptives to $1 billion over the following eight years. When all the pledges were tallied, including those from wealthy foundations like Hewlett Packard and Bloomberg, the total exceeded the $4-billion goal.
Notably absent from the event was any voice of dissent. No one mentioned China, where, in the wake of a three-decades-long one-child-per-family restriction, a black market for babies has emerged and female infanticide and sex-selective abortion have resulted in skewed birth rates of boys to girls as high as 137:100.
No American delegates objected to increasing controversial spending abroad while Americans are struggling at home. And even within Britain the opposition voice was silent about Cameron’s announcement while the day’s headlines were about the failing social security and health-care systems. And there were no pro-life organizations, no Catholic Church representation, and no declared Christian delegates.
However, Melinda Gates repeatedly represented herself in the media as a “practicing Catholic.” Before the summit, she said she had a great uncle who was a Jesuit priest and that her great aunt, who was an Ursuline nun, taught her to read. She graduated from Ursuline Academy in Dallas, where she said she learned “incredible social justice.”
The Ursuline Academy mission statement, however, declares the importance of “communicating the Gospel,” fostering “the message of God’s love — that each person has unique eternal worth” — and the “responsibility and the privilege of sharing Christian respect and love.”
“I think we made birth control and contraceptives way too political in the United States,” Gates told CNN. “I think if people understood that 200 million women want this around the world they would start to say, ‘Okay, that makes sense.’ ... We shouldn’t make it such a political issue.”
“If Melinda Gates wants to be truly radical and empowering and engage with the profoundly holistic and person-centered Catholic faith which she professes, she would do well to consider that Napro (natural procreative) technology is truly empowering for women — is better for their health (no abortifacient chemicals with health risks attached), is better for relationships between spouses, is better for the environment and costs almost nothing,” said Sarah de Nordwall of the U.K.’s Catholic Voices group. “Coupled with an emphasis on trade justice (much of which needs to come from initiatives in wealthy countries) and the provision of more female-friendly health services, this would provide a much better deal for women, their families and the countries in which they live.”
Expanding Market?
Natural family planning was mentioned once or twice, and CycleBeads (an NFP tool) were on a display table at the summit, but it would destroy the larger “win-win” plan the Gates have described in which pharmaceutical giants roll out discounted drugs with the promise of an “expanding market” while birth rates fall.
The expanding contraceptive market, the Financial Times reported this month, could result in a profit of $17 billion by 2015. The Merck for Mothers’ donation of $25 million over eight years hardly seems generous in that light, but the other pharmaceuticals were not even so openhanded.
Pfizer only committed to increasing its capacity for producing Depo Provera, its injectable hormones. The Female Health Company, makers of a female condom, only pledged a sliding-scale discount on their items — the more bought, the more saved.
Sterilization and abortion don’t fit in to that profit scheme, either, but they do profit the large “civil society” of abortion industry organizations such as International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes and Population Services International.
“This is not about abortion. This is not about population control,” Gates said before the summit. She dismissed the cases “from the past” of forced abortions and sterilizations as not relevant to her campaign.
Ironic, then, that on the very same day of her summit the health department in Jaipur, the largest city in the district of Rajasthan in India, launched its campaign to sterilize 100,000 women in just two weeks. A complaint against the many “sterilization camps” that are held throughout India, which receive millions in DfID and USAID funding — where women are maimed on straw mats and many have reportedly bled to death — is winding its way through the country’s supreme court.
Register correspondent Celeste McGovern filed this report from London.
View Comments
Comments
Join the Discussion
What evil this way comes.
I’m just thinking about how every black county is poor, rundown and government is beyond broke. For example, Haiti’s government still pays reperations to the French Parliament for the slave revolts n the late 1700’s. No wonder Haiti’s government is so broke. I’m glad I watched maafa 21 on YouTube earlier this year. Horrifying that blacks n America will b a permanent underclass by 2013.
Here is the way in which population control is working via the Obama administration influenced and supported by Prince Phillip who has been oft quoted that the world’s maximum population should be 1 billion. There are currently 7 billion. That is genocide beyond most folks comprehension but that is the reason for Melinda Gates’ rather psychotic insistence on birth control instead of expanding advanced farming practices worldwide. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it must be a duck, only this one is a Nazi, but not to worry, she is not alone.
I’m sorry, but your comments are replicant of Ms. Gates’ reason for giving birth control to poor women (and men I assume.) And if you look at the problems in third world countries you will find that beneath the poverty is a government who does not care for their poor, government who only looks after themselves and do not have Christian values. You cannot judge the poor of any country by the riches of the developed countries. The poor can usually get along with very little, its the oppressive government who keeps the aid from coming to them. Recently I talked to a good friend of mine who went on a medical mission to San Salvador. They took their own supplies, drugs and doctors and nurses. As soon as they landed in El Salvador they had to “buy off” the federali’s by giving them half of the antibiotics and half of the medical supplies. They then went into the jungle to take care of and do surgery on needy people. Governmental graft is the most costly detriment for good people to do good things. I’m not saying that too many children are a problem, I’m saying that children have a right to live regardless if Ms. Gates thinks different. Once you get by that fact, the better human being you will be. After all, Jesus suffered for us and the little ones are suffering for us as well.
sounds like population control to me, VIVEK. “maximum voluntary cap”. How about teaching them about Natural Family Planning and helping them to learn to observe the signs of fertility? It has NO SIDE EFFECTS like Contractives do (and THE PILL is a LEVEL ONE Carcinogen!)
I would never give donationn $ to an NGO that pushes contraceptives on the poor, especially the poor from disadvantaged countries.
Our NGO leaves the decision for no. of children on parents with a maximum voluntary cap of 2 children per couple. We also view children as a blessing only if parents are able to bring them up in a dignified manner. I would like to reply to Mojoron that you cannot blame governments for poverty in poor countries as more children per family have pushed familes under greater poverty as their income does not go up with birth of more children. Most of them produce more children because of lack of awareness and education and unavailability of contraceptive measures,
Diane, I would suggest you read the book “America Alone…” by Mark Steyn. It explains much of what Quo Vadis wrote. The worlds population in developed countries, except for the USA, are below replacement numbers, meaning that a new birth is equal to each death. Russia not long ago were willing to PAY for the women to start having babies, their ratio of deaths to live births dropped below 1:1 several years ago. Right now the USA’s ratio is at 2:1, but it is falling. The other important factoid is that in order for Medicare and Social Security to be cost neutral there needs to be more children in order to pay the cost of the programs in future years. The other factoid is that Muslim nations and those Muslims who live in foreign countries have far more children than the native races. This obviously means that eventually there will be more Muslims in France than there are white french. Here in the USA the Mexican American population will be 50% by 2050, not that I have a problem with that factoid. You must remember that when the Spanish tried to conquer the world they left many, and I mean many spanish surnamed children wherever they went. The spanish numbers are often more than the original native populations that were there originally.
Saying that there is a population problem in developed countries is patently false is not borne by the facts. There are more people than resources in poor countries and that is not the fault of the families who have the children but is the fault of the attendant governments who steal and oppress the native populations. If they were to be left alone and allowed to work and take care of their families there probably would not be a problem.
Here’s a link about underpopulation:
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/07/30/underpopulation-is-taking-america-over-a-financial-cliff/
diane - We in the developing world ARE having fewer babies, below population replacement in many countries, including Japan and several W European nations. The US is only growing in population due to immigration. Where have you been? Many deep thinkers attribute the malaise in Western Europe to its demographic collapse. I am not recommending that every family have nine children, but if we view children as a blessing instead of a carbon footprint, we’d be better off in so many ways.
POPULATION CONTROL IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE ON THIS PLANET. WE MUST STOP HAVING BABIES, ESPECIALLY IN DEVELOPED NATIONS, WHERE WE USE MOST OF THE WORLD’S NATURAL RESOURCES.
Article Headlines misguides people from the real purpose of this conference. The real purpose is not to oppose the catholic faith but to promote voluntary family planning measures. If people accept contraceptives and if they are made aware, they will not have to go for unwanted abortions. If permanent family measures are adopted by families who have reached optimum size, they will not require temp. measures also.
“Posted by Mrs Baker on Monday, Jul 16, 2012 4:27 PM (EST):
Is NO ONE aware that having children is GOOD for the global economy??? It’s like they want to put out a fire by dumping gasoline on it.
Message of this summit:
“Hurray, us! We were allowed to be born. Now let’s stop everyone else from having that privelege.”
ARE YOU SERIOUS. Where do you folks put your head everyday. At the rate of doubling the global population every 50 years where do you think we will get the resources for food and shelter.
You are all a bunch of close minded dangerous criminals spewing crap like the above.
Wake up and read a book and educate yourself!!
I remember reading that Bill Gates gave a secret math test to his prospective bride before he proposed, to verify her intelligence. Melinda passed his test, but she should ponder the following statement:
INTELLIGENCE + HUMILITY > INTELLIGENCE
My sisters in Christ and I prayed for Melinda by name last evening at our scripture study, that she be moved by the Holy Spirit to follow Truth, not the misguided canon of the Western liberal elite, who seemed hellbent on doing satan’s work.
To” Melinda Gates: You don’t any more fundraising since your foundation the BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION received a wopping THIRTY ONE BILLION DOLLARS FROM BILLIONAIRE WARREN BUFFETT and you should spend these money on FOOD AND MEDICINES to help the poor people not only in other poor countries but also in the US.
What Would Mother Teresa Say!
The sheer, stupid, obstinate, perverse and willful ignorance of our elites is on prominent display here.
It takes all of 5 minutes to Google ‘South Africa Census 2005’, and to find out the proportion of Catholics in a country that’s been in the top 3 of AIDS incidence for over 20 years. If these people could be bothered even in the slightest, they’d find that the worst HIV infection rates in the world ‘just happen’ to occur in countries where Catholics make up <10% of the population.
What’s wrong with this picture, O Brights?
If this gaggle of Free-Thinking, Tolerant, Inclusiveandwelcoming members of the Free Church of Fornication could close their slack, drooling jaws for a few minutes, maybe some thoughts would stay in their crania long enough to form a coherent thought; but then, few of them want to spoil their rants against the church with a few hard questions.
Like, In how many countries in the world has condom promotion led to a drop in HIV infection rates (hint: it’s a nice, round figure)?
But the truth will out, eventually. Africans and (especially) South Americans are fed to the back teeth with being able to get condoms, IUDs and abortions more easily than mosquito nets, water purification tablets or school-books. And it’s the truth which will cause them to fail - all the billions of fast-devaluing American currency, sloshed down the drain of history… by the truth.
Perhaps this might be an opportunity for someone to approach Mrs. Gates & in charity,help her understand Catholic teaching on this issue? I don’t believe she really “gets” it & who knows what she might have been taught back in the day.Many Catholics her age think contraception is “optional” & have not heard differently from the pulpit, nor in Catholic schools.
Melinda Gates has done much good for the world & is not hostile to the Church.I think we need to pray for her & others of her generation.
You would think Mrs Gates would have better things to do with her time and great wealth given by GOD than to promote killing his babies.
I am so disappointed by this story. Melinda Gates is so intelligent, and has so many resources at her disposal to help others in the world, and she has decided to propagate this misguided policy.
.
Why do we in the (declining culture of the) West think we have all the solutions for Third World problems, using methods that have impoverished us? If I had her money, I would support Catholic missions in their care and education initiatives, and let the Holy Spirit lead.
i took birth control pills for 5 years and IUD for one year. All these caused me headaches and bleeding. I had to undergo hysterectory. Pity the women who will suffer the consequences of birth control pills and IUDs.
The argument against artificial birth control is eerily similar to the argument against “gay marriage” or even legalized gambling or narcotics: strangely unconvincing, especially to those who are bent on practicing and promulgating these “sins.” Do you know anyone who was convinced to abandon these beliefs?
Judgment will come when clearer relationships are drawn between bad practices and unacceptable consequences. Right now, these relationships are not so clear. For instance, the only consequence of using artificial contraceptives is a trouble-free life, fewer costly kids, and a higher standard of living.
The truth of our faith is that it centers around the cross. That is a “scandal and an absurdity” to worldly people. We have nothing to show them but Jesus Christ crucified. But hopefully there’s enough power in that to succeed, where wordy arguments and common sense have failed.
“Drug, poison and kill” is the gospel according to Gates.
With money, power and power corrupts absolutely.
I’ve been a fan of the Gates’ since i was a child. Watching Bill grow and build his empire was pretty encouraging for me, and i knew he had to have a wise woman by his side. But this recent campaign by Melinda has made it clear that wisdom is folly when tainted by worldly ways . I pray Melinda has the insight to realize that procreation is a gift from God, and should not be abused or defiled by lust which is promoted through contraception. Her campaign would be better targeted at promoting abstinence in youths/married couples and mutual fidelity.
Irony. That’s what comes to my mind.
Many condemn Catholic missionari for coming to the new world, or china or India and converting native cultures. Forgetting the good things that were done and focusing on the loss of cultural identity. You feel how you wish about this. But make no doubt. That is exactly what these first world charities are doing. We know better, so we are going to teach you how not to continue this backwards culture you are a member of. But to make you in OUR image. With “empowered” women who stifle their womanhood rather than change the world to make this a friendlier place to women. Or educating men to be more like St. Joseph and less like the man children we are creating, who watch apcartoona and play video games at 30, while living at home. And on and on.
Insightful article: “Hey Melinda Gates, Poor Need Food Not Contraception”:
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/07/09/hey-melinda-gates-poor-need-food-not-contraception/
Mrs. Gates,
Please consider doing something that is guaranteed to have absolutely zero negative effects on women. Spend that money and that energy on stopping Human Trafficking, especially the trafficking of young girls out of India and Tibet for China.
Is NO ONE aware that having children is GOOD for the global economy??? It’s like they want to put out a fire by dumping gasoline on it.
Message of this summit:
“Hurray, us! We were allowed to be born. Now let’s stop everyone else from having that privelege.”
Conraceptives (specifically THE PILL) are listed as a level ONE Carcinogen! Its basically poison messing with a NATURAL FUNCTION. A better thing to do would be to teach one of the easier to learn methods of Natural Family Planning to the families in the poorer countries. And better nutrition and clean drinking water also helps (since they are SO concerned with maternal mortality and think contaceptives or abortion is the solution). Contraception doesn’t save anyone’s life, that’s a HUGE lie.
I’m sure I’ll get lots of disagreement, but in a sense - you know what? Let them. Let them do what they want to do. Give them a few decades to really do what they want and then they can decide for themselves whether the results they get are really pro-woman. Sometimes the best way to educate someone is to let him face reality.
AMAZING, here is a very wealthy woman championing women’s reprodcutive health….....And I thought that it was the fault of all those “rich” people that women are being denied their rights to reproductive medicine in this country….At least that is what the fast food media leads one to believe—along with Nancy Pelosi and company. But then again, Obamacare started with the promise from our illustrious President that it is NOT going to be a tax…next thing we hear it is declared a TAX by the highest court in the land. So, which way is it?????
I am so tired of the double standard that they allowed to get wiggle their way out of time and again.
There is a nexus of wealth and political power in the West that is imposing its godless value system on the rest of the globe. Why would any bishop allow Gates to claim the mantle of Catholicism while furthering that agenda?
I agree with Kathleen’s comment. But I also think the headline of this article “...launches a concerted campaign against Catholic teaching” uses sensationalized and misleading language. I see a misguided campaign to provide contraceptives, which truly is not good. But I don’t see Mrs. Gates “campaigning” against Catholic teaching. Contraception is a badly misunderstood subject by MANY (perhaps most)Catholics. There is hope for her. Let us pray that at some point her program focuses instead on natural family planning techniques. There is always hope.
Shame on you,the Gates,spending all that money on ABORTIFICATIONS.you oppose your own faith principles,to comprimise political ones.THE MONEY is unclean money used for unclean purposes.So much good could be used for other needs pleasing to GOD.
Hugely disappointing, and misguided… I don’t know where these people’s brains are…
An, Archbishop Sartain’s response in Seattle?
waiting…
waiting…
Very sad considering some of the other genuinely worthy efforts Mrs. Gates has been involved with.
Imagine a world where the Gates donated these same billions of dollars to stop child pornography, ongoing slave trade and insuring every woman (and man) and child had access to clean water? Just imagine.
Under the Gates wealth - we will soon witness a world without pregnant women or babies as a stroll in most major world cities can illustrate.
I have seen commericals on tv against contracives birth control pill. If you have experienced a certain side effect call a phone number for compensation of side effect. I do not see what is so great or impotant about contraceptives. How is that to help the poor. It seems birth controll pills are harmful to women health.
Join the Discussion
We encourage a lively and honest discussion of our content. We ask that charity guide your words. By submitting this form, you are agreeing to our discussion guidelines. Comments are published at our discretion. We won’t publish comments that lack charity, are off topic, or are more than 400 words. Thank you for keeping this forum thoughtful and respectful.
Comments are no longer being accepted on this article.