In an article first published at The Age online, Australian Christian Lobby managing director JIM WALLACE says foreign aid money should not be used to fund abortions…
Some things are difficult to forget. For me, one of those was the experience of driving through refugee camps in Rwanda and seeing the violent yet strangely dead eyes of both perpetrators and victims of the genocide there.
I knew that for the perpetrators, it would be nothing for them to do it all again. They had, by their actions, created a new depraved benchmark where life meant nothing.
I have similar memories from service with the UN in South Lebanon and briefly visiting Mogadishu during its crisis.
“This is not just an issue of whether we should blindly follow America and divert scarce aid dollars towards funding abortions, but also whether to export a slice of Western culture which only reinforces notions of the cheapness of life, rather than counteracting them.”
You’re left with the unshakable impression that a lack of respect for life is at the heart of not only individual atrocities, but the failure of civil society, which ultimately spurs and sustains violence on this scale.
Questions of life are much discussed here in Australia: where it starts, whether people should have the right to end it, what constitutes quality of life. There are many nuances here, but most of us would, I think, lay claim to a strong respect for the value of life as we understand it. Our objects might differ, our start points vary, but even the strongest rivals are generally motivated by a fundamental respect for life.
However, the nuances in our debates are often lost on parts of the developing world and certainly on its poorest to whom we address our aid.
There the culture of the West is, unfortunately, uncritically worshipped. The great majority see the best way out of their often-wretched lives is to mimic the West in every dimension possible. Doing so must surely lead them to the same level of wealth and happiness they perceive the West to represent.
Following the new US President’s move to lift America’s ban on the use of overseas aid to fund abortion services, Australia’s Federal Government has come under pressure to follow suit.
This is not just an issue of whether we should blindly follow America and divert scarce aid dollars towards funding abortions, but also whether to export a slice of Western culture which only reinforces notions of the cheapness of life, rather than counteracting them.
The clamour for Western values gives us the opportunity to export a respect for life, not messages and practices which devalue the life of the unborn and in the process bolster the general lack of respect for life that is often such a problem in poor countries.
The cross-party Parliamentary Group on Population & Development, which is leading the push to change Australia’s aid policy on abortions, points to the high rate of maternal deaths in developing countries.
Trained midwives, blood stocks and a clean birthing environment are far more effective in preventing maternal death than providing abortions. In fact, it’s estimated that the provision of $2 birthing kits could cut maternal deaths in the Third World by up to two-thirds. The current aid guidelines already provide for safe and effective family planning methods, including contraception.
People will argue that I’m just putting forward a Christian viewpoint on this issue and that it shouldn’t be given undue weight. The shallowness of that argument becomes starkly apparent when you consider the depth of commitment among Christians to providing foreign aid and the fact that a high proportion of Australia’s aid agencies are either Christian agencies or were established out of a strong Christian ethos.
A 2006 report on donations by the Christian Research Association found that churchgoers give about twice as much to charity, including overseas aid, as non-believers.
“Talk to most Christians faithfully giving to foreign aid organisations and you will quickly find that they do it out of a desire to bring life and hope to overseas communities and families. Imagine, then, the angst or even sense of betrayal many feel at the thought that a proportion of Australia’s aid dollars might in future go towards killing unborn children.”
The importance of overseas poverty as an issue for Christians was also evident in the results of a survey of more than 3000 people from 22 denominations in the 2006 National Church Life Survey (NCLS). Third World poverty was in the top five issues that Christians most care about. Perhaps ironically, given the current debate, abortion came in at number three.
Talk to most Christians faithfully giving to foreign aid organisations and you will quickly find that they do it out of a desire to bring life and hope to overseas communities and families. Imagine, then, the angst or even sense of betrayal many feel at the thought that a proportion of Australia’s aid dollars might in future go towards killing unborn children.
In the late 2007 federal election, foreign aid became an election issue for the first time in Australia’s political history and a good many of those behind that phenomenon were those same Christians.
Before the federal election both major parties were asked whether they were planning to overturn the aid policy on abortion and both denied any intention to do so.
At a time of global food shortage when the needs for food, clean water and sanitation are so great, surely we should be getting our priorities right.
Instead of exporting a culture likely to reinforce the disrespect for life already such a problem in these countries, let’s make a clear statement that we are encouraging life through our aid, not death.
Jim Wallace is managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby. He is a retired Brigadier and a former commander of the SAS.
This article was first published at The Age online.
