Save the Children is actively promoting all forms of birth control and “sexual and reproductive rights,” especially for adolescents and young adults.
On its website, and under the heading, “What we do,” Save the Children says the following about adolescent and reproductive health:
Our Adolescent Sexual And Reproductive Health Focus Areas
- Delaying Pregnancy through Access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Contraception
Although young people may not be thinking of planning their families, they are thinking about planning their lives and how to achieve their hopes and dreams. Comprehensive sexuality education and contraception is part of this life planning and adolescents need the knowledge and skills to delay and space pregnancies as they become sexually active and plan their futures. Save the Children has integrated family planning programming capacity within its long term programming for young people to ensure this key need is sustained in our work. Save the Children focuses on clinic and community based strategies to increase access to contraception for unmarried as well as married girls and boys, as well as access to comprehensive sexuality education through schools and community groups.
According to a report produced by the Tulane University School of Public Health, Save the Children is dispensing all forms of contraception, and even providing vasectomies and tubal ligations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Through a project funded from 2006-2009, Save the Children produced a book titled, “My First Baby: Guide for Adolescent Girls.” A large portion of the book is about the “importance” of using contraception and choosing which method is best for each individual girl. Representing Save the Children’s strong push for contraception among young teen girls is this chart found on page 61, explaining all the different contraceptive methods available to her, and even indicating which are most and which are least “effective.”
In 2012, Save the Children was actually able to convince the government of Guinea to change its Community Based Service Guidelines to allow community health workers to provide injectable contraception. According to their report on this policy change, Save the Children explained it this way:
Prior to 2011, distribution of injectable contraception by CHWs was not permitted in Guinea. However, CBA2I was included as a priority activity in the
Guinea country FP Operational Action Plan, developed as a result of the 2011 conference on Population, Development, and Family Planning in West Africa: An
Urgency for Action held in Ouagadougou.
In 2011, with funding from USAID and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Save the Children negotiated permission from the MOH to support the
introduction of community based distribution of injectable contraception in Guinea, focusing on select villages in Mandiana.
…
Based on results from Save the Children’s demonstration program, in September 2012, the Community Based Services Guidelines were revised by the
Ministry of Health to allow CHWs to provide injectable contraception.
In 2012, Save the Children wrote a 40 page report claiming that pregnancy is dangerous and artificial contraception saves children’s lives. According to Save the Children, the report, titled, “Every Woman’s Right: How Family Planning Saves Children’s Lives” “highlights the important role of health workers in providing contraception to help families space births and how more years of education can help delay marriage – both of which save children’s lives.”
Page 23 of Save the Children’s report on “how family planning saves children’s lives” explains how they expand access to and knowledge of contraception to teens in Etheopia:
In hard-to-reach districts of Amhara, Save the Children works with vulnerable adolescent girls and boys to improve knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights, and works to increase access to good-quality services, including contraception.
Page 35 of Save the Children’s report on “how family planning saves children’s lives” explains how they work to increase contraceptive use among couples.
In Uganda, Save the Children oversaw the distribution of condoms and oral contraceptives and referrals for injectable contraception. They also trained reproductive health workers on how to provide injectable contraception. According to this case study produced by USAID and Save the Children:
In a 2008 document by Save the Children titled, “Integrating Innovative Family Planning Strategies into an Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health Program in Malawi,” Save the Children explains how it is spreading contraception among young people in Malawi. On page 3, Save the Children says:
To encourage use of family planning amongst adolescents, Save the Children worked with a large network of youth clubs in Mangochi district to recruit and train 45 Youth Community-Based Distribution Agents (YCBDAs) who provide youth-friendly health services to other adolescents. After the training, YCBDAs were linked with a local Health Surveillance Assistant (HSA) who serves as their primary supervisor and provides the YCBDA with a monthly supply of contraceptives. In their communities, YCBDAs provide information on contraceptives and prevention of STIs, including HIV/ AIDS and offer condoms and oral contraceptive pills to interested clients. Those interested in contraceptives not offered by the YCBDA are referred to an HSA or other healthcare provider at the health center.
Conclusion
The work and interests of Save the Children are completely contrary to Catholic moral teaching. Save the Children seems to think that the best way to “save children” is to prevent them from coming into existence at all.
Because of Save the Children’s unwavering promotion of these grave moral evils, no Christian could ever, in good conscience, support, provide funds or a clean image for this organization.
