{"id":182405,"date":"2018-05-10T10:08:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T14:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=182405"},"modified":"2018-05-10T13:41:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T17:41:01","slug":"prince-william-population-control-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/prince-william-population-control-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Westerners like Prince William push population control in Africa, but at what cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, had people around the world cheering with joy last month when they welcomed their third child<\/a>, a boy they named Louis. That the royal couple have chosen to have a third child has been welcomed by many, as it strikes a blow to the two-child mentality<\/a> that is so pervasive today. Yet even as he flouts cultural expectations to keep family size small, Prince William is pressing for population control — at least, for those who are less privileged than he is.<\/p>\n

Population control for thee, but not for me<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prince William recently gave a speech<\/a> for Tusk, an African wildlife conservation organization, in which he argued<\/a> that “there is no question” that \u201cAfrica\u2019s rapidly growing human population\u2026 puts wildlife and habitat under enormous pressure. Urbanisation, infrastructure development, cultivation\u2014all good things in themselves, but they will have a terrible impact unless we begin to plan and to take measures now.\u201d<\/p>\n

“In my lifetime, we have seen global wildlife populations decline by over half,” he said at a gala dinner benefitting Tusk. “We are going to have to work much harder and think much deeper, if we are to ensure that human beings and the other species of animal with which we share this planet can continue to co-exist. Africa’s rapidly growing human population is predicted to more than double by 2050, a staggering increase of three and a half million people per month.”<\/p>\n

Overpopulation, of course, is a myth<\/a>. Yet that doesn’t keep privileged westerners like Prince William from taking aim at developing nations — like those in Africa — and arguing that there should be less of those<\/em> people. It is clear that there are elements of racism or eugenics in these arguments, which are happening with alarming frequency.<\/p>\n

READ: Children are not our enemies or liabilities. They’re our future.<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Westerners have taken it upon themselves to make sure that people of color in developing nations have fewer children. Melinda Gates has long pushed for “family planning” — contraceptives and abortion — in developing countries, and has pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars<\/a> to prevent babies from being born in places like Africa. Marie Stopes International has been found to give young African girls long-term birth control without getting their parents’ consent first<\/a>. European countries want Africans to stop having babies for their own selfish motives.<\/a><\/p>\n

But Danish politician and former minister for development cooperation Ulla Tornaes let slip that her motivations may not be entirely altruistic. When she spoke at the summit for the need to promote family planning in Africa and other developing nations, she said<\/a>, “Unwanted pregnancies have enormous human costs in developing countries \u2013 from very young women who must give up their basic education, maternal mortality.\u201d But rather than arguing that women need better access to obstetrical care or education, she argued instead that these pregnancies need to be prevented.<\/p>\n

Western countries’ imposition of abortion seen as “cultural supremacy”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obianuju Ekeocha is a biomedical scientist and the founder of Culture of Life Africa, a U.K.-based pro-life group, who frequently argues against wealthy people, organizations, and countries using their power, money, and influence to further abortion and birth control in Africa. \u201cIn all my work with African countries, I don\u2019t know of any which is screaming, \u2018Come and help us, we have this abortion crisis,’\u201d she said. \u201cBut a lot of Western countries, in this spirit of cultural supremacy, are still trying to impose abortion in this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the recent Family Planning Summit in London, co-hosted by the British government alongside the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.N. Population Fund, Ekeocha spoke out about how this is nothing more than an updated version of colonization. \u201cThey need to go back to the integral care of the person, where they were thinking of the Africans not as people who they can colonize culturally and impose their new views and values on them, but as a people who have their own views and values,\u201d she explained. \u201cWhat Africans want more than anything is for women to give birth safely… in a lot of these countries they can\u2019t even get the most basic health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ekeocha also battled with a BBC anchor who repeatedly argued that African women need birth control to be empowered and successful.<\/p>\n