While some local religious leaders have rushed to rally behind America\u2019s recent move to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, others have warned that there is need to exercise caution.<\/p>\n
Also described as the Global gag rule, instituted in 1984, the rule restricts funding to foreign health groups that perform or provide any information on abortion.<\/p>\n
General Secretary for the Livingstonia Synod in the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP), Levi Nyondo, in an interview over the weekend described as courageous the signing of the executive order by America\u2019s new President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Despite growing criticism from health and rights activists, Nyondo said this will go a long way in ensuring that Malawians start to respect and embrace the sanctity of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica has been exonerated because all along it has been blamed for moral decay happening across the globe, this is a good development which pleases us as the church,\u201d said Nyondo.<\/p>\n
But General Secretary of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) Father Henry Saindi says it\u2019s too early to celebrate Trump\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
He said with advice from Pope Francis XVI, the Catholic Church will remain patient and observe if his [Trump] other government\u2019s policies are guided by ethical values.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not want to be overtaken by emotions, we would like to see how Trump\u2019s administration responds to real life challenges like taking care of the homeless who flee to his country and the poor which are the church\u2019s major concerns,\u201d Saindi explained.<\/p>\n
Adding: \u201cOn this particular order, yes, it\u2019s commendable, however, our stand is that of wait and see. We don\u2019t want to rush and judge the new administration based on just this one event.\u201d<\/p>\n
ECM is one of the influential religious institutions in the country that has in recent years spearheaded campaigns against amendment of the law to support safe abortion, and was also among the major organisers of the pro-life mass protests in October last year.<\/p>\n
Contrary to ECM, Sheikh Dinala Chabulika of the Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) yesterday corroborated Nyondo\u2019s sentiments.<\/p>\n
He said the order stands to flush out a big chunk of organisations out of Africa, particularly Malawi who solely survived on promoting issues of abortion which he said challenge religious tenets.<\/p>\n
Saying: \u201cPeople will have to start taking responsibility over their action. No pregnancy is unwanted to warrant its termination which is tantamount to killing because every adult knows that unprotected sex does lead to conception.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then stressed that Islam only nods to abortions which have been medically approved that they put the life of the woman in danger.<\/p>\n
Statistics indicate that 17 percent of maternal mortality in Malawi is attributable to unsafe abortions, with about K300 million committed to Post-Abortal Care expenses annually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While some local religious leaders have rushed to rally behind America\u2019s recent move to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, others have warned that there is need to exercise caution. Also described as the Global gag rule, instituted in 1984, the rule restricts funding to foreign health groups that perform or provide any information on abortion. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40257,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40255\/revisions\/40257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}