As Mandela is mourned, abortion foes protest

As world leaders and ordinary citizens gathered in a South African sports stadium on December 10 to remember Nelson Mandela, abortion foes pushed a message that went against the global outpouring of praise: the antiapartheid leader, they argued, backed a sweeping abortion rights law that negates any good he achieved.

“I cannot get past this and cannot view Mandela as any other than a leader who engaged in mass genocide of his own innocent people,” Jill Stanek, a prominent abortion opponent, wrote on her blog at LifeNews.com.

“Nelson Mandela was no saint,” wrote Paul Tuns, editor of The Interim, an antiabortion paper in Canada. “My concern is with pro-lifers and Christians joining in the praise,” he added.