Posted on 08/08/2002 9:18:40 AM PDT by gubamyster
London (CNSNews.com) - A pro-abortion British charity said Thursday that it will officially open one of the first dedicated reproductive health clinics in Afghanistan this weekend.
London-based Marie Stopes International (MSI) has been planning to move into the country since early this year, according to Bayard Roberts, the organization's Afghanistan program manager.
Roberts said the clinic, which has already started operations but will officially open on Saturday, would remain sensitive to local conditions when it comes to the issue of abortion.
Abortion was banned under the Taliban, but in January the interim Afghan government decided to allow abortions until the end of the first trimester in situations where the woman's life is in danger.
The only time the clinic will get involved in abortion, Roberts said, is if women come to the clinic after receiving a botched abortion procedure. The all-female clinic staff will complete the procedure and provide basic health care, he said.
MSI and the London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) have come under fire by pro-life groups for providing family planning, birth control and other reproductive services to Afghan refugees living in camps in Pakistan. The IPPF is also looking to return to Afghanistan.
Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, has said that pro-abortion family planning agencies are aiming to "break down cultural resistance to abortion and contraception within the refugee camps."
"Afghan refugee women face a new reign of terror designed to violate their right to bear children," he said in February.
Nuala Scarisbrick of the British-based Life organization said providing birth control and even limited abortion services in Kabul would be an insult to Afghan culture.
"One of the things that comes across from the reporting on Afghanistan is that it is a very family-oriented culture and that many people are caught up in struggles which they have no control over," she said. "This fight (over abortion) is, I fear, another such struggle."
"The last thing that should be going into the country is an agency whose sole aim is to provide abortion," she said. "We worry about guns and arms destabilizing the country, but we should be equally worried about this."
However, Roberts insisted the new clinic's operations have received the approval of the Afghan government and the local community. He noted that the majority of MSI's work in Kabul will be in the fields of training and mother-child care.
"There's a huge demand for the most basic health care," he said. "We've already had 20 to 30 women a day at the clinic, and this is before the official opening and without any publicity."
The program will be set up with MSI discretionary funds, but Roberts said the group plans to secure permanent funding.
"Our goal is to set up Marie Stopes Afghanistan," he said. "This is not just an emergency relief project. Eventually, it will be staffed and run entirely by local people."
In the longer term, the group plans a series of smaller-scale local clinics throughout the Afghan capital city and a roving clinic and training facility to reach more remote areas.
MSI receives money from the British government, the European Union and the United Nations along with a number of other organizations.
E-mail a news tip to Mike Wendling.
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Remind me again why they hate us?
"The Pill" ends pregnancy by preventing implantation of the fertilized egg. Sounds like an abortion to me.
When it comes to the culture wars the Western elites are fighting around the world in our name, the vultures are always in the vanguard of the assault.
I give it a couple of (maybe) months then - BOOOOMMMMM!!!
These org's run under the ruse that their doing something good..HA! Why not call what there doing for what it is, wholesale slaughter. I know, it'll never happen.
However, since the Temperature method was not always available and certainly not world wide, this method is nothing more than birth control by the church's chosen method.
Any other conclusion is illogical.
The pill is a more effective thermometer.
This "ALL MALE" organization ignores women and treats us like baby-factories.
Sac
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