Despite the worldwide media’s eulogizing of the late South African President Nelson Mandela, a handful of media organs are bringing to light that the former Central Committee member of the South African Communist Party supported what is arguably the most liberal abortion legislation on the globe.
The Catholic-centered news portal Rorate Caeli via the news aggregate PewSitter.com report that Mandela signed into law the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1996, which in its preamble states ironically that it recognizes:
[the] values of human dignity, the achievement of equality, security of the person, non-racialism and non-sexism, and the advancement of human rights and freedoms which underlie a democratic South Africa.
It is one thing to support abortion but something else again to say that you are doing so out of respect for “human dignity,” “equality,” “security of the person,” and toward “the advancement of human rights.”
In an academic research paper published by Rhodes University of South Africa, medical historian Rebecca Hodes of the University of Cape Town even challenges the notion that the law somehow reflected the interests of a democratic South Africa, writing:
There was never broad-based support for abortion within the ANC [Mandela’s ruling African National Congress].
Hodes “points out that despite President Nelson Mandela’s explicitly-stated support for the Choice Bill, more than 80 MPs [Members of Parliament] voted against it in October 1996, with over 50 MPs absenting themselves from Parliament on the day as a show of resistance.”
Since the legalization of abortion in the RSA, there have been 1 million reported abortions, with the overwhelming number being that of racially black African unborn children as cited by Spero News on Jan. 31, 2012. So much for the claims of “non-racialism” in the law’s preamble.
Opposition by the Zulu Nation…
Despite the world’s media portrait of Mandela as a strong proponent of democracy, paint a different picture. The BBC reports that in 1993, Mangosuthu G. Buthelezi, chief of the Zulu Nation and leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, declared that “the African National Congress does not represent his Zulu people and puts forward the idea of a separate state called Kwazulu Natal.”
Chief Buthelezi was also renowedn as a champion of capitalism for South Africa as well as leading an armed struggle against Mandela and his ANC prior to the dismantling of the apartheid government in the 1990s.
And that Whole Communist Party Thing…
In their eulogy to Mandela, the South African Communist Party’s official website wrote:
At his arrest in August 1962, Nelson Mandela was not only a member of the then underground South African Communist Party, but was also a member of our Party’s Central Committee.
To us as South African communists, Cde [Comrade] Mandela shall forever symbolise the monumental contribution of the SACP in our liberation struggle.
Mandela also served as Chairman of the so-called “Non-Aligned Movement,” a chairmanship also held my the likes of:
- Former dictator of Yugoslavia Josip Tito
- Cuba’s Generalissimo Fidel Castro
- Former Muslim Brotherhood leader of Egypt Mohamed Morsi
- Former Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Howard Portnoy contributed to this report.
