Adventist Relief Agency works to increase the use of artificial contraception, and distributes them as well. ADRA’s facilitation of contraception includes abortifacients, such as injectables, oral contraceptive pills, and so-called “emergency” contraception.
n 2015, ADRA joined Catholics for Choice and Planned Parenthood in signing a letter to congress asking for $1 billion to be allocated to contraception programs for international development and assistance programs.
In a 2013 article by the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), ADRA is identified specifically as a Faith Based Organization (FBO) that works to expand access to contraception. The Guttmacher article explains that ADRA specifically links its efforts to promote birth control to its anti-poverty and other development efforts:
Some FBOs link their support for family planning to their larger agenda to support global antipoverty, education, health, sanitation and other development programs. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), for example, believes that “health is at the very core of much of the world’s poverty and suffering” and that family planning is an integral component of alleviating that suffering.
The article illustrates how this belief is put into practice by spotlighting ADRA’s contraception-promoting programs in India:
ADRA partnered with the Nepal Red Cross Society and other stakeholders to improve maternal and child health by reducing mistimed, unwanted and high-risk pregnancies through increased use of modern contraceptives. The project documented increased community-level knowledge, involvement and interest in family planning; increased access to family planning services through a strengthened public health system; and improved quality and monitoring of services. For instance, quantifiable results included the training of more than 2,600 female community health workers and increases in the contraceptive prevalence rate (from 44% to 53%) and the proportion of providers with good family planning counseling skills (from 27% to 77%).
In 2008, a handbook produced by an organization called FHI360 explained ADRA’s part in the distribution of injectable contraception in Madagascar. The introduction to the handbook explains:
This handbook describes how to introduce injectable contraceptives to the suite of family planning services offered in an existing community-based distribution (CBD) program. The approach is based on the experiences of two recent pilot projects in Uganda and Madagascar. These countries were chosen because of a dire need for family planning services, the existence of established CBD programs, and the willingness of their governments to adopt this method of providing injectable contraceptives.
…
The pilot project in Madagascar began in 2006 in the regions of Anosy and Alaotra Mangoro. The project was sponsored by FHI and Madagascar’s Ministry of Health and Family Planning, in collaboration with SantéNet, Population Services International (PSI), the Adventist Development Relief Association (ADRA), and Action Santé Organisation Secours (ASOS).
Page 38 of the handbook explains how ADRA helped contraception distributors get started and how it made sure the village chief was made aware of his new ability to provide Depo-Provera, the injectiable contraceptive.
In a 2004 issue of the Emergency Contraception Network’s (ECN) newsletter, ADRA was identified for its part in pushing emergency contraception in Armenia.
According to ECN, ADRA:
- carried out a four-month awareness-raising campaign on emergency contraception
- conducted a one-day EC seminar for 31 health care providers
- translated into Armenian and printed 2,000 copies of an EC brochure that Gedeon Richter, Ltd., the manufacturer of Postinor, had made available in Russian.
- developed and printed 500 flyers on EC
- supplied the government-run women’s health clinic with 162 boxes of Postinor-2 for distribution to women free of charge.
ADRA’s work in Nepal helped increase the contraceptive prevalence rate from 44 to 53 percent. According to the 2010 article bearing the headline, “Nepal: ADRA completes family planning project”
ADRA strengthened the capacity of more than 380 outreach clinics in the region, and distributed an estimated $100,000 of medical equipment to local health facilities. As a result, the project not only increased the rate of contraceptive use within the region from 44 percent to 53 percent, but also improved the quality of local health services.
According to its 2010 newsletter, ADRA distributed over 6,000 condoms in Haiti.
The newsletter said:
The ADRA Community health nurse was based in each of the 12 camp zones until August 13. The nurses were trained to triage people with health complaints or refer them, when necessary. They were trained to recognize infant and child malnutrition and to educate mothers in lactation and optimum nutrition. Nurses also dispensed 6,720 condoms to IDPs (internally displaced people).
Conclusion
ADRA is completely unapologetic in its promotion and distribution of abortifacient contraception and condoms. It’s handbooks, program reports, news interviews and media projects all indicate that the organization on the whole is not only willing to spread the Culture of Death, it is an energetic participant.
Because of ADRA’s unwavering promoting of these grave moral evils, no Christian could ever, in good conscience, support, provide funds or a clean image for this organization.
