“We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up
to Africans.” With these words President Obama unfurled his
Africa policy to dignitaries in Ghana in July 2009. Continuing,
Obama declared that though all nations should aspire to
democracy:
Each nation gives life to democracy in its own way, and
in line with its own traditions.… America will not seek to
impose any system of government on any other nation — the
essential truth of democracy is that each nation determines its
own destiny.
If Obama’s words seemed trite then, they seem ironic now.
The Obama administration’s attempts to impose abortion abroad has
been unethical. Its attempts to do so in Obama’s father’s
homeland may also be illegal.
The Obama administration has made abortion promotion a
centerpiece of its diplomatic agenda. Testifying before the House
Foreign Affairs Committee in April 2009, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton announced, “We are now an administration that
will protect the rights of women, including their rights to
reproductive health care.” She added that
“reproductive health includes access to abortion
that I believe should be safe, legal and rare.”
The “centerpiece” of the Obama foreign policy, she
continued, would be the Global Health Initiative, which commits
the U.S. to spending $63 billion over six years on, among other
things, abortion and other reproductive services.
In March, Clinton interfered in a Canadian controversy and
threw what the Toronto Star called, “a grenade in the
lap of her shell-shocked Canadian hosts” when during a news
conference in Quebec she aggresively endorsed abortion as a way
to promote maternal health.
But the administration’s abortion promotion has been more
than rhetorical. One of Obama’s first actions in office was to
rescind the Mexico City Policy, which required
non-governmental organizations that receive federal funding not
to perform or promote abortion abroad.
And Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of
dollars to promote “family planning and reproductive health
programs worldwide.” Over the next five years, Clinton announced
in January, “All governments will make access to
reproductive healthcare and family planning services a basic
right.”
Obama’s abortion imperialism may have its greatest impact
in Kenya, where the administration has spent millions to promote
ratification of a national constitution that would radically
liberalize the country’s abortion laws.
Abortion is illegal in Kenya except to save the life of the
mother. This reflects the views of most Kenyans, who are
religious and socially conservative.
On August 4, however, Kenyans will vote yes or no on a
draft constitution that includes language that would
make most abortions a constitutional right.
Though it recognizes that “the life of a person begins at
conception,” the constitution would legalize abortion when in the
“opinion of a trained health professional there is need for
emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in
danger, or if permitted by any other written law.”
Another article states that “Every person has the right to
the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the
right to health care services, including
reproductive health care.”
This language has the fingerprints of western abortion
rights groups all over it. The Center for Reproductive Rights
(CRR) has implored Clinton to “send a message to Kenya expressing
support for the Draft Constitution and opposing any amendments to
eliminate abortion language…”
Administration officials have indeed sent a clear message
to Kenya. After the Kenyan Parliament approved the
abortion liberalizing draft constitution, the White House
released a statement lauding the parliament’s decision and
encouraging Kenyans to “see this important reform element through
can help to turn the page to a promising new chapter of Kenyan
history.”
Obama even appeared on the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation
to tell Kenyans that voting for the document was “a singular
opportunity to put the government of Kenya on solid footing.” He
urged Kenyans to “take advantage of the moment.”
Vice President Joe Biden was dispatched to Kenya in June to
lobby for passage. He told a crowd of Kenyans that they should
adopt the new constitution in order “to allow money to flow” to
Kenya from other countries.
“The United States strongly supports the process of
constitutional reform,” Biden said. “Dare to reach for
transformative change, the kind of change that might come around
only once in a lifetime. If you make these changes, I promise
you, new foreign private investment will come in like you’ve
never seen.”
But the money already has been flowing. American Ambassador
Michael Ranneberger was quoted in May stating that
the U.S. has donated $2 million for “civic education” about the
proposed constitution.
The administration’s efforts in Kenya piqued the curiosity
of three U.S. congressmen with legal oversight jurisdiction over
foreign funds. Chris Smith (NJ), Darrell Issa (CA), and Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (FL) launched a probe to determine whether the Obama
administration violated federal law by using taxpayer money to
promote the constitution.
In May they wrote to auditors at the State Department,
USAID and GAO, stating that, “The Obama administration’s advocacy
in support of Kenya’s proposed constitution may constitute a
serious violation of the Siljander Amendment,” which prohibits
foreign aid from being used to lobby for or against
abortion.
A July report by the Office of the Inspector General of the
USAID found that the administration has given grants totaling
more than $23 million to more than 200 groups working to turn out
the “yes” vote in the referendum.
“Under no circumstances should the U.S. government take
sides,” Rep. Smith said during a press conference in late July.
“Yet this is precisely what the Obama administration has
done.”
The federal probe further found, according to Smith, that
the Kenyan constitution was written partly by “U.S. funded NGOs
working in concert with Planned Parenthood.”
Kenyan Catholic Bishop Anthony Muheria told me in an e-mail
that he has little doubt the Obama administration has been
actively pushing the constitution. “The U.S. Vice President has
gone on record during his last visit, that [adopting the abortion
language into the Constitution] is a condition for the funds to
come,” Muheria wrote. “He even insinuated the difficulty those
opposing the draft would face to get U.S. travel visas! This was
quoted in our Kenyan media.”
While polls show most Kenyans support the idea of a new
constitution, most do not understand the ramifications of the
abortion language, wrote Muheria, who has been
active in trying to educate Kenyans about the constitution’s
abortion provisions.
Christian and other pro-life groups in Kenya are actively
opposing the constitution’s passage. Bishop Muheria
continued:
We as a Church are trying to educate and explain [the
abortion] language, and the reaction is always one of rejection
of this type language. The whole content issue is easily
reduced to propaganda and TV or Radio clichés. And
unfortunately the ones who have the money are those putting
forward these abortionist ideas. There is a lot of funding
support for this group.
Bishop Muheria remains optimistic despite polls showing
that the constitution is likely to pass. “My hope and prayer is
that [Kenyans] reject the proposed constitution and set out to
build another more humane [constitution] in the primary issues of
human rights and dignity,” he wrote.
Obama concluded his Ghana speech last year by re-stating
his hope for Africa. “As I said earlier,” he told
the crowd, “Africa’s future is up to Africans. The
people of Africa are ready to claim that future.”
With its aggressive efforts to promote abortion in Kenya,
the Obama administration has made it clear that the only
future it will accept is a future with fewer
Africans.
