Ireland Forces European Union to Back Down on Pro-Abortion Africa Plan 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 21, 2007
Brussles, Belgium (LifeNews.com) — Delegates to the European Union from Ireland have been successful in forcing it to moderate its support for an African plan that promotes abortion continent-wide. The African Union approved the pro-abortion Maputo Plan of Action, a non-binding resolution, in January and pro-life advocates have opposed it ever since.
Several African nations signed up to support the Maputo plan, which is seen as a move towards population control that could promote abortions and even forced abortions or sterilizations like those seen in China.
It urges African countries to "enact policies and legal frameworks to reduce incidence of unsafe abortion” and to “prepare and implement national plans of action to reduce incidence of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion."
According to a Catholic World News report, the Irish delegation to the European Union questioned support for the plan at a meeting of European foreign ministers.
The Ireland lawmakers said an EU motion to support it would violate previous EU policy against officially endorsing abortion in other nations.
CWN reports that a MEPs reached a compromise agreement where the EU would support the plan only "within the context of EU policies."
In February, a leading pro-life congressman told a conference in Nigeria that the problem in Africa is not illegal abortions but a lack of basic health care, doctors and medical facilities.
Debunking the myth, Smith noted "it is false to claim that abortion will be safe if it is legal."
"Abortion is never safe for the child and can harm the woman physically, emotionally and psychologically whether legal or illegal," he explained.
Smith said that "complications from childbirth can be treated and women’s lives saved if they have access to safe and sanitary birth delivery centers, delivery kits, trained birth attendants, antibiotics, clean blood transfusions and prevention and treatment of obstetric fistula."
The congressman added that an organized pro-life movement is needed in African nations like Nigeria because of the ratification of the Maputo plan.
