French President Emmanuel Macron stepped into a virtual hornet’s nest when he made a statement insinuating that more education prevents women from having too many babies. As a result, educated women from all over the world are proving him wrong.

CNA/EWTN News is reporting on the comment which was made by Macron during a Gates Foundation event held in New York City late last month. The high fertility rates in Africa were being discussed at the time and the president said he believed education was needed to empower African women to choose not to have large families. He went so far as to compare having a large family with forcing a girl to be married as a child and said that when women are educated, they don’t have as many children.

“I always say: ‘Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight or nine children,” said Macron. “Please present me with the young girl who decided to leave school at 10 in order to be married at 12.’”

The comment came to light in a recent article appearing in The Guardian and did not go over too well with women who were proud of both their education and their large families.

Dr. Catherine R. Pakaluk, a professor of social research and economics at the Catholic University of America, started the hashtag by sharing a photo of herself with six of her eight children.

The post was quickly followed by other women, such as Beth Hockel, a Stanford graduate, electrical engineer, and mother of 11.

Another woman reminded Macron that one of the judges being considered for the U.S. Supreme Court, is judge Amy Coney Barrett who has seven children.

Catholic writer Elizabeth Foss shared a picture of her nine children, saying “Yes, they’re all mine. And so is my UVa degree.”

History is also replete with evidence to prove Macron wrong. For example, St. Gianna Molla was an MD and the mother of four children.

Lilian Gilbreth, one of America’s foremost engineers who was an expert in motion study, had 12 children.

Elizabeth Anscombe, a philosopher who taught at Oxford and Cambridge, was the mother of seven.

Some women, such as Emily Price of Campaign Life Coalition, Canada’s political arm of the pro-life movement, accused Macron of being racist. She said that even though the French president tried not to appear that way, suggesting African women need contraception and abortion to keep families small betrays a colonial mindset.

"Emmanuel Macron is right to value girl's education but his emphasis on a 'chosen' fertility rate and the so-called essential role of family planning betrays a very colonial sort of motivation," Price told LifeSiteNews.com.

"Educated women and big families are not incompatible with a productive, developing society, as Macron has suggested," she said. "Quite the contrary. People are the means by which the future is built."

She went on to call Macron's ideological bent "philanthropic racism."

“The French president and his wealthy friends’ push for population control in Africa reveals an ideological supremacy that is extremely dangerous," said Price.

"On one hand, they promote just causes like education, improved infrastructure and humanitarian aid, but at the same time, they aggressively promote this idea that in order to bring girls and families out of poverty, the poor must abort their children and sterilize their women, killing future generations of Africans."

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com