The cobra knocks on John’s door and asks, “John please let me in. It is cold and damp outside. I promise I will do no harm to you or your family.” But John vigorously rejects - at first - the pleas of the cobra, knowing the imminent danger. Yet the cobra seductively repeats his plea, preying upon John’s compassion and concern, repeating, “John please let me in. It is cold and damp outside. I promise I will do no harm to you or your family.” John, believing the cobra is sincere, lets his guard down against his better judgment, giving way to the cobra’s plea. A few days pass without incident, and John becomes acceptant and indifferent towards his so-called guest. But one night while everyone is asleep, the cobra strikes, injecting his lethal poison and killing everyone.
John is to blame for not defending his family – stepping into the breach. We cannot be angry with the cobra; after all, the cobra could not deny its nature.
Modern Day Cobras
Though I have seen many atrocities against life and family during missions to nearly 80 countries, I have not seen or experienced such a comprehensive and concentrated affront to life and family as I saw in my recent mission to Uganda. More than 100 anti-life groups, death peddlers (cobras), unashamedly market their poisonous wares, under the guise of “health care.” And they are doing this among a people who love life and family and who struggle simply to obtain basic human necessities.
The leading organization actively involved in anti-life work down to the village level in Uganda is Marie Stopes International (MSI), which has admitted to doing illegal abortions all over the world and which operates 14 illegal abortion mills in the country. MSI is supported by the usual population control groups, including: AVERT, CEDPA, the Center for Reproductive Rights, DFiD, Family Health International, the Gates Foundation, Human Rights Watch, IPAS, IPPF, PATH, Pathfinder International, Population Action International, the Population Council, the Population Reference Bureau, Population Services International, USAID, and at least nine organs of the United Nations. Each group is working to convince Ugandans that their economic problems are the consequence of too many children – the average family size still being 5-6 children.
No matter where, in the nearly 1,200 miles I traveled, I saw sign after sign, of various sizes and colors, marketing perverse sexual behavior that undermines Ugandan culture and traditional life and family values. Alongside major highways, side roads, and even in some of the remotest villages, population controllers advertise their wares. Without conscience or shame and emboldened by the lack of resistance, poor education, economic need, and indifference, they display their evil goods openly. For example, the boulevards surrounding parliament, the seat of Ugandan government, are decorated with dozens of signs advertising contraception – injectables and condoms. Billboards advertise the need for lower numbers of children, which currently make up 55% of the total population.
Sadly, most parliamentarians and civil leaders are unfamiliar with the history of Marie Stopes or what each of the organizations actually has as its mission and strategy.
Ideological Colonization of the Mind and Desensitization
"A people enters with an idea that has nothing, nothing to do with the nation. … And they colonize the people with an idea that changes, or wants to change, a mentality or a structure."
–– Pope Francis, Jan. 19, 2015
There is more to life than material abundance. With our own families and culture collapsing around us, it seems odd that we in the West so easily consider our way of life superior; that we see our relationship to the poor and to poorer nations as one in which we have all the answers, and that they should listen to us.
Really?
Many seek to impose certain aspects of Western thinking – an “ideological colonization” – in response to the struggles affecting millions of people and families living in abject poverty. They advocate for lower birth rates, introducing contraception and abortion, because from their point of view children are an obstacle to progress and development. This violent attack on life and family in the developing world is part of the “development” efforts of Western elites and wealthy nations, whose objectives are carried out by large non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who promote and uphold their values. . . .
