Spirit & Life Newsletter: Dollars and Deception in Kenya

A Kenyan Village Sign: Image by Zoriah via Flickr

Dollars and Deception in Kenya (This week's column is written by Joseph Meaney, HLI's director of international coordination)   The national referendum on Kenya's new constitution has been declared official with 67% of the vote. The previous Kenyan Constitution proclaimed the fact that human life begins at conception, and that all human life was worthy of being defended. In fact, the wording of the constitution retains part of this strong pro-life language: "Every person has the right to life. The life of a person begins at conception." Yet in another demonstration of the deception employed regularly by pro-abortion elites, an unelected international committee of "experts" added the following in Article 26: "Abortion is not permitted unless, 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 law." That's right. Abortion is now constitutionally legal whenever the pregnancy may affect the health of the mother, whenever any "health professional" deems it necessary, or whenever any law at all says it is legal. This hidden language in the new constitution essentially opens up the floodgates on abortion for this pro-life country. How did this happen? A large part of the blame can be placed upon the Obama administration, which spent over $23 million of US tax payer money to promote the new constitution. Pro-life Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) and others have forced an investigation by the office of the Inspector General, revealing the expenditures, which, despite the administration's denials can be traced easily to openly pro-abortion organizations who were charged with getting out the vote in support of the referendum. But here's the catch: Spending government funds to lobby for or against abortion in foreign countries is illegal through a law known as the Siljander Amendment, and they've been caught red-handed. Not that they appear to have any respect for law, or any policy they haven't created themselves. The Obama/Clinton pro-abortion foreign policy of the US government may become this administrations' "Watergate" or "Iran-Contra," but in the meantime Kenya bore the brunt of a propaganda campaign funded with millions of US tax dollars. The vast majority of Kenyans declare that they are opposed to the legalization of abortion, but similarly high numbers voted for the new constitution which provides for expanded legal abortion. A big reason for this was the flagrantly dishonest public denials by Kenya's political leaders that abortion would be legalized by the new constitution. Kenya's Catholic bishops and other Christian leaders spoke out forcefully against the new constitution as did pro-life groups, but they did not have the enormous access to the means of mass communication that the "Yes" campaign enjoyed. Tribal and religious politics also played a big role in the outcome. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki is from the most numerous tribe in the country, the Kikuyus. Since he endorsed the constitution, his ethnic group took their lead from his stance. Muslims were given an incentive to vote for the constitution in the form of "kadhi," or Islamic, courts, which rule on the basis of Sharia Law in marriage, divorce and inheritance cases. One cannot miss the irony that this assault on Kenya was perpetrated by an administration led by one who has Kenyan blood flowing through his veins. Nor should we miss the fact that this referendum passed because of the activity of radical feminists - feminists who would apparently sacrifice the well-being of Kenyan women to famously anti-woman Islamic courts in order to achieve their sacred goal - abortion on demand. Where does Kenya go from here? There will be an immediate opportunity to pass amendments to the constitution. One of the promises of the "Yes" campaigners was that the new constitution can be amended. The majority of Kenyan legislators and voters are pro-life, so this should be done as soon as possible. Since the constitution has both pro-life language and anti-life provisions, legislators can build more solid pro-life laws. They can more strongly codify the basic right to life included in the constitution and declare that abortion is not allowed. This would undoubtedly lead to court battles that the pro-life side will have to fight. One wonders if the Obama administration, which has thus far flouted not only US law, but the will of the Kenyan people, will continue to do all it can to ensure that abortion is fully legalized throughout Kenya. Their arrogance and nakedly aggressive intervention seems to know no bounds, and their leadership seems utterly uninterested in even pretending as if it has any rule to obey other than its own corrupt will. Clearly, Kenya is at a crossroads. If there is not a massive societal rejection of abortion, it will be imposed on the nation. We must pray that the Church and pro-life movement will be able to fight this battle successfully. Kenya's future depends on it.

The Reason for the Administration's Assault on Kenya Population Control - pure and simple. Learn more about this devastating policy and a little bit about its history in this HLI LIfeLines video featuring Raymond de Souza. See the video here...

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