Rwanda’s Catholic clinics strike a compromise with government on providing access to contraception
The government wanted to increase birth control use. But the Catholic Church runs about a third of the country’s hospitals and clinics. So they struck a deal.
(The Christian Science Monitor) For decades, if you needed health care in Masaka, a small town just outside Rwanda’s capital, the Roman Catholic health center was your only option. That included women looking for birth control—most forms of which the Catholic Church forbids.
“That is our faith; we cannot change what we believe,” said Mary Goretti Nyirabahutu, the Catholic sister in charge of the health center, connected to the Archdiocese of Kigali.
But now, around the corner, wedged into half of an old municipal office, a tiny government health center offers an alternative. “Family Planning,” reads a tiny sign above the doorway.
