By BRIAN CLOWES
(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For a PowerPoint presentation on the Gates Foundation, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)
+ + +
We’ve all heard of how Bill Gates’ genius and foresight (along with a hefty dose of luck) allowed him to become the richest man on Earth. Forbes estimates his present fortune to be about $67 billion. Exactly how much money is this? How can we even begin to visualize this gigantic number?
If the Gates fortune were converted into crisp new one-dollar bills, it would consume the entire output of all of the United States Mints for a decade, and would make a solid block 143 feet on a side. If stacked in a single pile, the dollar bills would be 4,600 miles tall, the distance between New York City and Moscow, an eight-hour flight. This massive fortune would weigh 74,000 tons, enough to load 3,700 semi trucks, a convoy stretching 150 miles.
Upon reading Bill Gates’ story, many people naturally ask themselves, “What would I do with that much money?” Like the Gateses, you might decide to spend your fortune on programs that you thought would alleviate poverty in the developing world.
Unfortunately, not only is the Gates Foundation funding solutions to poverty that do not work, they are funding groups that undermine the rights and health of poor women on a massive scale. Further, Bill and Melinda Gates are using their influence to encourage other powerful people and organizations to do the same.
“Not Supporting Abortion?”
Melinda Gates has claimed that “from the very beginning, we said that as a foundation we will not support abortion, because we don’t believe in funding it.”
Apparently, the accounts payable department at the Gates Foundation didn’t get the memo, because it has poured nearly four billion dollars into the bank accounts of the most virulently pro-abortion groups on Earth.
This includes $69 million to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the largest pro-abortion organization anywhere. The Gates Foundation has also given $67 million to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which assists in implementing the Chinese forced abortion program, and which aggressively promotes abortion all over the world. In just one year, the Gates Foundation granted Marie Stopes International, which has admitted performing illegal abortions all over the world, $46 million.
The Gates Foundation has also generously funded many single-purpose population control groups, including Family Health International ($163 million); PATH ($187 million); the Population Council ($64 million), and Population Services International ($179 million).
The Gates Foundation has also lavished $151 million on CARE International, which is pushing Orwellian “Safe Motherhood” bills legalizing abortion all over Africa, and which has said that “CARE believes that access to quality sexual, reproductive, and maternal health is both a fundamental human right and a critical development issue.”
There are certain elements common to all of these “Safe Motherhood” bills: contraception for girls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent; abortion for any reason at all, and heavy fines and jail terms for those who do not comply with the program.
Supporting these “Safe Motherhood” bills for the alleged purpose of reducing maternal mortality is like saying that we want to save people from dying in traffic accidents, so instead of building safer roads and cars, we simply slash the tires on everyone’s cars.
The two main questions we should ask Melinda Gates are these: 1) “If you really want ‘safe motherhood,’ why not fund much more effective lifesaving measures such as prenatal care and monitoring, attended childbirth in a clean environment, and treatment for such problems as obstetric fistula, which cause the most deaths?” 2) “If you claim that you don’t want to fund abortion, why are you funding the biggest promoters and practitioners of abortion in the world?”
In all, the Gates Foundation has given a total of $3.81 billion to abortion-performing and abortion-promoting organizations since 1994. For Melinda Gates to claim that her foundation does not support abortion makes about as much sense as someone who says that they don’t support racism, but then gives billions of dollars to the Ku Klux Klan and the White Aryan Resistance because of their excellent roadside cleanup work.
Getting Other Billionaires
On Board
Bill Gates is not content to let his billions speak for him; he wants his fellow billionaires to join him in his campaign against overpopulation. In May 2009, he convened a meeting of a number of the world’s richest people in order to discuss overcoming political and religious obstacles to population control.
The other attendees included Warren Buffett (the fourth richest person in the world, with $53.5 billion), Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York City (and 13th richest person in the world with $27 billion), George Soros (number 30 at $19.2 billion), Ted Turner, David Rockefeller Jr., and Oprah Winfrey.
With irony surely unintended, Gates labeled his group “The Good Club.”
One of the guests, who understandably wished to remain anonymous, revealed that the attendees formulated a strategy that would combat population growth, which they saw as the most dangerous threat to mankind.
The guest said: “This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers. They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”
“Independent of government agencies,” said the unnamed guest — which means that these people and the organizations they fund feel that they can operate outside the law, as we see consistently all over Africa.
When You Lie
Down With Dogs . . .
The Greek playwright Euripides (fifth century B.C.) said: “You can tell the character of a man by the company he keeps.” Bill and Melinda Gates not only support and fund abortion, they spend much of their time rubbing shoulders with the most extreme pro-abortion groups on Earth.
The Gates Foundation and the United Kingdom’s foreign aid agency, the Department for International Development (DfID), cosponsored the July 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, which was held on the 100th anniversary of the first London eugenics conference. This conference garnered $4.6 billion in pledges by developed nations to spread contraception and sterilization around the world, with a heavy emphasis on Africa.
DfID was fully aware of the horrible abuses that have been perpetrated in India’s sterilization/abortion camps for decades, and still chose to fund them to the tune of $261.4 million. One gynecologist said that “95% of our clients belong to the very poor class. They are responsible for giving birth four or five times. Since they cannot remember to take birth control pills every day, long-acting contraceptives are much better for them….In order to have a good thing there is always a price to pay. If two or three women die — what’s the problem? The population will be reduced.”
We must also ask why the Gates Foundation refuses to promote natural family planning, which has no side effects and, according to Contraceptive Technology, is as effective as the birth control pill at preventing pregnancy. Melinda Gates, a baptized Catholic, pledged in 2012 to spend a billion dollars developing new abortifacient methods and distributing them primarily to African women.
A writer for L’Osservatore Romano said that Gates does not promote natural family planning because “it is completely free, an aspect that, evidently, makes it very unpopular with the pharmaceutical industry, which, through chemical contraceptives, obtains enormous profits, as will others thanks to the philanthropy of Mrs. Gates.”
Many African pro-lifers clearly recognize the threat that billions of anti-life dollars pose to their nations and to their people. As pro-life leader Obianuju Ekeocha of Nigeria said, “I see this $4.6 billion buying us misery. I see it buying us unfaithful husbands. I see it buying us streets devoid of the innocent chatter of children. I see it buying us disease and untimely death. I see it buying us a retirement without the tender loving care of our children. Please, Melinda, listen to the heartfelt cry of an African woman and mercifully channel your funds to pay for what we really need.”
+ + +
Next article: “What is the Abortion Situation in Latin America?”
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress