The head of MaterCare International (MCI), a group of Catholic obstetricians and gynecologists dedicated to the care of women in the developing world, charges that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has refused to fund MCI's new birth trauma center in the African country of Ghana because MCI does not perform abortions.

Dr. Richard Walley told the Friday Fax that MCI has "been working with CIDA for some time, but I think now they have found out exactly who we are and they certainly don't like a Catholic/pro-life organization of obstetricians and gynecologists such as ours. CIDA recognizes the significance of MCI, and is therefore out to block it or destroy it."

According to Walley, MCI has assembled a "world class team of specialists" for the trauma center, along with substantial donations of money, land and medical equipment. The government of Ghana supports the project. However, Walley asserts that "CIDA has finally chosen, without adequate explanation, to ignore these accomplishments and thus the suffering of poor African women. It should be a source of complete shame that Canada's development agency has cynically turned its back on the suffering of women in Africa."

This is not the first time that MCI has witnessed international organizations, including the United Nations, place the promotion of abortion ahead of the care of poor women.

According to Walley, "We have experienced opposition, most recently when we tried to establish essential obstetrical care in East Timor, where there are no obstetricians. It was made clear to us by the U.N. that we were not welcome unless we were prepared to provide reproductive health care, which is abortion, the morning after pill, sterilization, etc. Of course, we refused, so the U.N. has blocked our participation."

Walley has also learned how the U.N. indirectly funds abortion. "While I have not been present as a U.N. official carried out an abortion," he said, "I have certainly seen their material and it is clear that UNFPA [the U.N. Population Fund] is pushing manual vacuum aspiration, an early form of pregnancy termination, and there is a kind of money laundering going on. The funding that they had to provide these services had been transferred to an organization known as the International Relief Service."

MCI will hold its second international workshop of Catholic obstetricians and gynecologists in Rome, from October 23 to 27. The conference has been organized along with the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC). One of the primary goals of the meeting will be to address how MCI can function in the face of such strong international opposition.

Walley believes that MCI must succeed because "U.N. population controllers have corrupted health care. At the very least, I can only say that abortion and birth control are irrelevant to a mother who has obstructed labor or who is dying from a postpartum hemorrhage. They [the U.N.] will claim that they are preventing a woman from becoming pregnant, thus preventing her from becoming a maternal death. So they provide so-called 'safe abortion.' What they are not addressing adequately is the essential obstetrical care which women require."