Marie Stopes International—South Sudan Abortion Clinic in Juba
10 min read
By Dennis
After 21 years of civil war in Sudan where millions of lives were lost, we would imagine that the most logical programme for the world’s youngest nation—South Sudan, would be one that promotes population growth to replace the lost lives. South Sudan, a country twice the size of UK, and population estimated at less than 10 million, is not ripe for abortion.
Abortion is illegal in South Sudan and any organization or individual promoting abortion is promoting an illegality. However, despite what the law says and the knowledge that abortion is illegal in South Sudan, Marie Stopes International (MSI) opened a clinic in Juba (Hai Negli Area, East of Juba University) in July 2010. The opening ceremony was a low key event, intentionally designed not to attract media attention as it was soon after they had been kicked out of Khartoum. Their assets, including brand new cars, were taken by Humanitarian Commission (HAC) and all staffs paid six months’ salary to disappear and not talk to the media.
Internationally, MSI is known to provide abortions especially in countries where abortion is legal (UK, South Africa etc). On its official website in the UK, MSI describes itself and the kind of services it offer to the clients:
“Marie Stopes International is the UK’s leading provider of sexual and reproductive healthcare services. Our nationwide network of sexual health clinics see over 100,000 men and women each year who come to us for information, advice and professional care. We are committed to providing all the help you need to make informed choices about your health. We ensure that there is no wait for appointments and that our centres are safe, friendly, and comfortable places to visit. Our services include: Contraception, Unplanned pregnancy counseling, Abortion information and advice, Help for women needing abortions, Abortion pill and other treatment options, Vasectomy information and vasectomy procedure, Female sterilization, Health screening for men and women, Company health screening and STI testing.”
Even in countries where abortion is illegal, the practice continues but is disguised as provision of Family planning services. That is how they took root in Juba, South Sudan and in Khartoum previously.
Taking the case of MSI Juba Clinic for instance, immediately after launching, 16 staffs were recruited to do underground mobilization, targeting young girls at the University of Juba and its environs. The message was clear: tell them there are family planning services and other services like those in neighboring countries (In Uganda and Kenya, MSI is known for this practice and they were targeting those who could have heard about it such as returning refugees).
Realizing the targets were not being met, MSI decided to recruit and bring in a new country director, one who had the credentials of increasing sales in record time. And this time the sales were measured in terms of the highest number of abortions in the shortest time possible (year one target was 1500).
Deaths:
Hardly a year into the operations, the first victim of the ‘safe abortion’ was recorded. However, the case had to be killed without being picked up by the media and the police. The family based in Ethiopia was paid and all expenses related to hospitalization and burial catered for by MSI.
Shortly thereafter, another case arose. A man who was certain that his wife was pregnant came back from Yambio only to find that the wife was no longer pregnant. Upon severe battering, the wife admitted that she had procured an abortion at MSI clinic in Juba. The man had to be paid to kill the story, and thus, a high delegation was sent from London since they were getting concerned that their young project might go the Khartoum way (In reference to how they were kicked out of Khartoum)
Late last year (2011), the third victim was a young girl probably in high school. The pregnancy was more than 12 weeks and the doctor on duty refused to perform the operation. He was sacked for this but the saddest part was that the young girl passed away.
Malpractices:
Using the NGO tag, MSI is freely getting supplies from UNFPA, MSH and Ministry of health in Juba. As you can see, Family planning commodities are given to them freely and instead of providing free services as it should be, the commodities end up being sold to the poor victims!
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU):
MOU with the national Ministry of health and the State Ministry of Health: In order to get the MOUs signed with the government as is the norm in Juba, long lofty letters and communication is sent back and forth to London to ensure nothing sensitive passes or can be picked up by the government authorities. If only the government bodies were to do due diligence then the real business of the clinic could have been un-earthed.
Smuggling of Abortion Drugs:
Abortion drugs which are not registered in Juba find their way through parcels and staff hand bags. Any staff travelling to London or from London will be delivering of picking orders. Since they know that the scanning at Juba International Airport is not serious, they pass scot free and duty and tax free!
Training of Staff:
Capacity building is one of the core pillars of any programme and true to that MSI ensures the staffs are taken out of Juba especially to Kenya, Ghana and South Africa where they can get many women coming for abortion to practice. The flip side is, instead of focusing on Family planning as indicated in the visas, the whole two weeks training is on abortion and those missing the real benefit to the deserving communities. It would be worth money to train midwives to improve the maternal mortality situation rather than focus on abortions.
Incriminating Documents:
Documents in our possession indicate clearly the objectives of the clinic. To protect the operations, most documents are marked classified or confidential. These are never shared with outsiders. In the documents, you can clearly see what is written (different words are used to cover up the real deal, i.e. MSP and MSMP: Basically Abortions without medical assistance and with medical assistance respectively).
8 attachments — Download all attachments
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Annex Three External Relations Guidance Summary 29 July 2011.docx 343K View Download |
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Copy of South Sudan Logframe, Workplan & KPIs 08 11 11.xlsx 38K View Open as a Google spreadsheet Download |
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Country Design South Sudan Short – Dr Baba Final.docx 64K View Download |
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Interview questions for clinical staff.docx 17K View Download |
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Interview Schedule for clinical Staff.docx 18K View Download |
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PMDUP Start Up Guidelines 29 July 2011-1.doc 431K View Download |
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Result Scan-Juba November 2011.xls 399K View Open as a Google spreadsheet Download |
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Revised order form-MSI-SS.xls 302K View Open as a Google spreadsheet Download |
Interviews and Recruitment:
Having operated for one year without being un-earthed, the strategy is to move to other good areas (potential business). The major towns identified so far are Torit, Nimule, Yambio, Yei, Kajo Keji, and possibly Mundri.
When staffs are being recruited, the only thing that matters is the pro-abortion answer. For example, even if you are the most qualified candidate but you are against abortion, then you have no chance of being recruited. Due to lack of adequate job opportunities in South Sudan, most people would grudgingly accept that they can perform abortions only to realize that it is a bloody and murderous affair.
According to one of the providers: “I saw light after being presented with a case where the child came out still alive, I went home, confessed to a priest and promised myself never to be involved again.” That’s how she left working for MSI. Her contract was terminated immediately.
The Big Question is….
The big and urgent question is: for how long will this carnage continue? Or if it’s the best thing to have ever happened for our girls and women, then let the government openly announce that they want to, or have already, legalize abortion. In that case, let the MSI clinic and other clinics operate freely and competitively!
The citizens of South Sudan, as well as the government, must be made aware of the illegal activities of MSI in Juba. The government must wake up and declare which side it is on, MSI or the law!! If the law had changed, then that should be made explicitly clear to all citizens of our country so that there should be accompanying laws to safeguard and protect the lives of our womenfolk at the MSI clinics and to punish any negligence and cover-ups going on there.
The simple, yet the fundamental, question is this: under whose (and what) law are MSI clinics operating? South Sudanese must know because their love ones are dying under mysterious circumstances, all under the nose of a seemingly dysfunctional government in Juba and beyond the reach of the law!
Surely, South Sudanese deserve better than this!!
Dennis is a concerned citizen of South Sudan from Juba.
First, They Came for the Catholics
Michelle Malkin’s column is released once a week.
By Michelle Malkin | Michelle Malkin – President Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It’s about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First, they came for the Catholics. Who’s next?
This weekend, Catholic bishops informed parishioners of the recent White House edict forcing religious hospitals, schools, charities and other health and social service providers to provide “free” abortifacient pills, sterilizations and contraception on demand in their insurance plans — even if it violates their moral consciences and the teachings of their churches.
NARAL, NOW, Ms. Magazine and the Feminist Majority Foundation all cheered the administration’s abuse of the Obamacare law to ram abortion down pro-life medical professionals’ throats. Femme dinosaur Eleanor Smeal gloated over the news that the administration had rejected church officials’ pleas for compromises: “At last,” she exulted, the left’s goal of “no-cost birth control” for all had been achieved.
As always, tolerance is a one-way street in the Age of Obama. “Choice” is in the eye (and iron fist) of the First Amendment usurper.
Like the rising number of states who have revolted against the individual health care mandate at the ballot box and in the courts, targeted Catholics have risen up against the Obamacare regime. Arlington (Va.) Bishop Paul Loverde didn’t mince words, calling the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services order “a direct attack against religious liberty. This ill-considered policy comprises a truly radical break with the liberties that have underpinned our nation since its founding.” Several bishops vowed publicly to fight the mandate.
Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Mich., asserted plainly: “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.”
It’s not just rabid right-wing politicos defying the Obama machine. Pro-life Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania denounced the “wrong decision.” Left-leaning Bishop Robert Lynch threatened “civil disobedience” in St. Petersburg, Fla., over the power grab. Lefty Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote that Obama “botched” the controversy and “threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus” by refusing to “balance the competing liberty interests here.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney blithely denied on Tuesday that “there are any constitutional rights issues” involved in the brewing battle. Yet, the Shut Up and Hand Out Abortion Pills order undermines a unanimous Supreme Court ruling issued just last week upholding a religious employer’s right to determine whom to hire and fire. And two private colleges have filed federal suits against the government to overturn the unconstitutional abortion coverage decree.
Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the nonprofit law firm The Becket Fund, which is representing the schools, boiled it down for Bloomberg News: “This is not really about access to contraception. The mandate is about forcing these religious groups to pay for it against their beliefs.”
How did we get here? The first salvo came in December 2010, when the American Civil Liberties Union pushed HHS and its Planned Parenthood-championing secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn.
The ACLU called for a litigious fishing expedition against Catholic hospitals nationwide that refuse to provide “emergency” contraception and abortions to women. In their sights: Devout Phoenix Catholic Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who revoked the Catholic status of a rogue hospital that performed several direct abortions, provided birth control pills and presided over sterilizations against the church’s ethical and religious directives for health care.
The ACLU and the feminists have joined with Obama to threaten and sabotage the First Amendment rights of religious-based health care entities. The agenda is not increased “access” to health care services. The ultimate goal is to shut down health care providers — Catholic health care institutions employ about 540,000 full-time workers and 240,000 part-time workers — whose religious views cannot be tolerated by secular zealots and radical social engineers.
Is it any surprise their counterparts in the “Occupy” movement have moved from protesting “Wall Street” to harassing pro-life marchers in Washington, D.C., and hurling condoms at Catholic school girls in Rhode Island? Birds of a lawless, bigoted feather bully together.
Michelle Malkin is the author of “Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies” (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
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