Melinda Gates to speak at pro-abortion conference

Almost a year after Melinda Gates stressed that her organization supported contraceptives, not abortions, at the Summit on Family Planning in London, she will speak at the Women Deliver conference alongside a late-term abortionist and a pro-infanticide philosopher, according to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM).

Women Deliver, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is a global conference on maternal health, with at least four workshops on providing “safe” abortion for more women around the world. Gates will present a talk about her efforts, along with her husband Bill Gates, to promote family planning by providing contraception to countries around the world.

Last July, the Summit on Family Planning raised $4.6 billion to further the use of contraceptives and reduce the number of children in the world. Gates, who professes to be Catholic, said she disagreed with the church’s position against contraceptives, but pledged the money would not fund abortions: “From the beginning, we said that as a foundation we will not support abortion, because we don’t believe in funding it.”

But her fellow speakers don't share her beliefs about abortion. LeRoy Carhart, who performs second- and third-trimester abortions at his Maryland center, will speak during one break-out session. Carhart tried but failed to overturn a ban on partial-birth abortion in the United States, and has faced pressure after two woman died following late-term abortions at his facility.

Earlier this month, pro-life group Live Action released undercover videos shot in Carhart’s abortion centers in which he said lethally injecting the baby would make it “mushy” like “putting meat in a Crock-Pot.” He claimed that the woman who died in February after a 33-week abortion died because of complications with the pregnancy, not from the abortion.

Another speaker scheduled for a general session is Australian philosopher Peter Singer, who goes beyond approving abortion to supporting infanticide in his utilitarian worldview. In his book, Rethinking Life and Death, he said “the fact that a being is human, and alive, does not in itself tell us whether it is wrong to take that being’s life.”

He does not believe newborns have the “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness” of personhood, and equally disqualifies the personhood of the elderly and ill, promoting euthanasia. Sanctity of life, Singer believes, is an outdated and unscientific belief. He also approves of bestiality, claiming that it could be mutually satisfying.

Singer will be on two panel discussions, addressing topics such as population control, fighting environmental degradation, promoting women’s rights, and ensuring a dignified life.

About 5,000 people are expected to attend the conference set for May 28-30.