Nigerian Woman Writes to Melinda Gates: We Don't Need Your Contraception

By Obianuju Ekeocha
8/20/2012
Teresa Tomeo (www.teresatomeo.com)

$4.6 billion dollars can indeed be your legacy to Africa and other poor parts of the world. But let it be a legacy that leads life, love and laughter into the world in need.

I see this $4.6 billion buying us misery. I see it buying us unfaithful husbands. I see it buying us streets devoid of the innocent chatter of children. I see it buying us disease and untimely death. I see it buying us a retirement without the tender loving care of our children. Please Melinda, listen to the heart-felt cry of an African woman and mercifully channel your funds to pay for what we REALLY need.

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CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - This letter,offered below, was written by Obianuju Ekeocha, a 32-year-old Nigerian woman. For the past six years she has been living and working as a biomedical scientist in Canterbury, England. Most of her family and many friends still live in Nigeria.

She is active in her parish and says she is grateful to God for the graces she receives as she serves the Church.

She praises Catholic radio in America, specifically the programs of Teresa Tomeo and Al Kresta, for keeping her "informed and inspired in all the things that 'matter most,'" and for providing her with a Catholic world view.

She said she was inspired to write an open letter to Melinda Gates after learning of Gates' move to inject $4.6 billion worth of contraceptive drugs and devices into her homeland.

"The worst part is that no one in Africa (meaning the average African woman or man) knows that Melinda is about to bequeath us her 'legacy' which can and most probably will stifle love and life in our continent," she said.

She is hoping Melinda Gates will hear her "as the voice of the African woman."

An open letter to Melinda Gates :

Growing up in a remote town in Africa, I have always known that a new life is welcomed with much mirth and joy. In fact we have a special "clarion" call (or song) in our village reserved for births and another special one for marriages.

The first day of every baby's life is celebrated by the entire village with dancing (real dancing!) and clapping and singing - a sort of "Gloria in excelsis Deo."

All I can say with certainty is that we, as a society, LOVE and welcome babies.

With all the challenges and difficulties of Africa, people complain and lament their problems openly. I have grown up in this environment and I have heard women (just as much as men) complain about all sorts of things. But I have NEVER heard a woman complain about her baby (born or unborn).

Even with substandard medical care in most places, women are valiant in pregnancy. And once the baby arrives, they gracefully and heroically rise into the maternal mode.

I trained and worked for almost five years in a medical setting in Africa, yet I never heard of the clinical term "postpartum depression" until I came to live in Europe. I never heard it because I never experienced or witnessed it, even with the relatively high birth rate around me. (I would estimate that I had at least one family member or close friend give birth every single month. So I saw at least 12 babies born in my life every year.)

Amidst all our African afflictions and difficulties, amidst all the socioeconomic and political instabilities, our babies are always a firm symbol of hope, a promise of life, a reason to strive for the legacy of a bright future.

So a few weeks ago I stumbled upon the plan and promise of Melinda Gates to implant the seeds of her "legacy" in 69 of the poorest countries in the world (most of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa).

Her pledge is to collect pledges for almost $5 billion in order to ensure that the African woman is less fertile, less encumbered and, yes, she says, more "liberated." With her incredible wealth she wants to replace the legacy of an African woman (which is her child with the legacy of "child-free sex."

Many of the 69 targeted countries are Catholic countries with millions of Catholic women of child-bearing age. These Catholic women have been rightly taught by the Church that the contraceptive drug and device is inherently divisive.

Unlike what we see in the developed Western world, there is actually very high compliance with Pope Paul VI's "Humanae Vitae." For these African women, in all humility, have heard, understood and accepted the precious words of the prophetic pope. Funny how people with a much lower literacy level could clearly understand that which the average Vogue- and Cosmo-reading-high-class woman has refused to understand. I guess humility makes all the difference.

With most African women faithfully practicing and adhering to a faith (mainly Christian or in some cases Muslim), there is a high regard for sex in society, especially among the women. Sex is sacred and private.

The moment these huge amounts of contraceptive drugs and devices are injected into the roots of our society, they will undoubtedly start to erode and poison the moral sexual ethics that have been woven into our societal DNA by our faith, not unlike the erosion that befell the Western world after the 1930 Lambeth conference! In one fell swoop and one "clean" slice, the faithful could be severed from their professed faith.

Both the frontline healthcare worker dispensing Melinda's legacy gift and the women ...

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1 - 10 of 51 Comments

LILY ANTHANIA GOMES
7 months ago
I HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAM SINCE 1989 IN BANGLADESH. IT IS A PROJECT OF CARITAS BANGLADESH. I THINK THIS KIND OF MESSAGE WILL ENCOURAGE US TO UNDERSTAND THE BED EFFECTS OF CONTRACEPTIVES AND WILL HELP US REALISE ABOUT THE GODS PLANS FOR HUMAN BEINGS.THANKS
Robert
8 months ago
I am very grateful to Uju for this article. I hope that everyone in the Western NGO's will read and reflect on it.
I am a European myself, and i must say that we too love and cherish life, but it is the liberal trend in the world, supported by governments, spread through the various media channels, that brainwashes us, telling us that we are free to chose our partners as much as we wish, that sex is a pleasure with no strings attached, that a man has a right to satisfy his desires and a woman has a right to decide whether the new life that is in her has a right to live or not. Instate of educating young people how to love and what is love and respect for others, they just want us to rote and die. This is not our culture, because this is culture of death. We are and we love and promote the culture of love and life.
Ifee Kojo
8 months ago
African women are proud, strong and born to survive, having one child or ten will not kill us, it wont enburden us. It is our pride. It is our joy. Thank you for the offer, but please plug it into something more useful and needful for Africa. We cherish life, we love life, child birth gives us a greater sense of our god-like nature, being able to produce another human being. Whether the pregnacy is wanted or not, once the child appears, the joy appears.
We need to push this beyond this article.....the answer is NO, but thanks.
Chukwudi
9 months ago
I am a doctor working in Nigeria, and one thing that is so frustrating here is watching people die from ailments that could have been handled with access to GOOD MEDICAL FACILITIES. Clinics here are few and most don't deserve the name of medical clinic : no drugs, no equipment and no clean water supply. Dear Mrs Gates and others out there, please focus on our true needs, turn your eyes to what will truly benefit our people: well-equipped hospitals, well-equipped hospitals, well-equipped hospitals.
vance
9 months ago
J, great post. Keep everyone on issue. You're right. Africa needs so much and it is a shame that Super Wealthy Liberal Bill and Linda Gates could not offer something constructive other than death. They are not capable of contributing to the quality of life for Africa. They are like all Liberals who are consumed with eugenics and death. This is their religion.
J
9 months ago
How did we all depart from the main theme of this article to run circles around PPD ??? This article is essentially about Melinda's neo-imperialism in her move to provide massive amounts of artificial contraceptives for nations that actually never asked for it. I come from Africa myself and the most stark and urgent need is NOT artificial contraceptive.
Please everyone there is so much at stake here , let us concentrate on the issue at hand.
On the whole , I thought it is a beautifully worded letter , even more like an appeal to people of goodwill from all around the world!
Charlie
9 months ago
@ Concerned: So I see your point about how the pill helped your PPD.... I guess you are in favor of what Gates wants to with her donation. But can you or do you see that there is a strong argument that AC is on the whole a bad thing for societies-premarital sex, infidelity, high divorce rate, broken homes, abortion practiced by unwed and wedded woman etc, The One More Soul site makes a great case for how AC in general wrecks our society. http://onemoresoul.com/
concerned too
9 months ago
Charlie,

After being treated with multiple medications without success my post partum depression stabilized when I was put on consistent hormones. Otherwise known to some as the birth control pill. The first medications that I was on had such severe side effects that they could have cost me my life. While I would rather have not been on any medication I had to weigh the risk versus benefit of hormones. I think you would be surprised to find that many women are helped by the pill. I am grateful I did not have to be on it long term. However, when used to treat a medical condition it is in line with church teaching. (Although I am not interested in getting into a discussion about that) I also had gone thru evaluation with the Creighton Method of NFP and found a doc associated with that method to not be helpful. I searched extensively for treatment for the PPD.

So rather than causing my depression I believe it saved my life. I thought it was important that you understand that the pill does not cause depression in all women.

I definitely did not think she was implying that she thought the birth control pill was causing all this depression in American women. Besides, the rate of PPD in Nigeria is higher than it is in the US. I really don't think she is giving us an accurate picture of life in Nigeria. I think Loretta gives us a better understanding.
Stephen
9 months ago
@Lorreta, you have got very perfect logic there, only one question. Today, i gues u live a relatively previliledged life compared to say your grandFather, bse of technology, implying that your grandchildren (if u intend t o have any) will ve a much better life. Does that mean that your grandchildren will be happier than u? and does that mean that you are much happier than your grand parents?. I highly doubt. Everyone lives in their times and circumstances. Extrapolating your circumstances to a universal audience makes you a standard of truth. Now u will tell me how perfect your logic is and i will tell that even celebrated profesors can make very grave mistakes. Sigmund freud for example is said to have sang of the praises of Opium and caused the death of a few people. And anyway, the msg of Christianity has never been viewed by me as one that takes pain away. But one that encourages us to face pain and to try to be responsible and not to divorce action from responsibility.
Charlie
9 months ago
To Concerned Too:
I believe she was making the point that artificial birth control (the pill) is the cause of most PPD in the first world countries.
To Lorretta: If things are bad in Nigeria now, artificial contraception will only make it worse. Why can't people see that AC is destroying America-the West- the first world. AC is a bad, bad, bad thing. It's as simple as that.

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