Jeff Jedras at A BCer in Toronto helpfully copies and pastes from behind the subscription wall at Embassy Magazine.
CIDA Minister Bev Oda says the government's child and maternal health strategy will not address unsafe abortions in developing countries or support access to family planning and contraceptives. Rather, she said that to ensure the aid agency remains effective, "it's the lives of mothers and babies that we are focused on."
But with nearly 15 per cent of all maternal deaths being attributed to such abortions, and up to 40 per cent of maternal deaths preventable with access to family planning and contraception, experts and critics say support for these areas is essential.
On Jan. 28, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that rallying support for maternal and child health would be a major focus of Canada's G8 presidency. In developing countries, more than 500,000 women die each year in pregnancy and 9 million children die before the age of five.
(snip)
When asked about support for contraceptives and family planning in an interview last week, Ms. Oda said: "In order to maintain our focus, again our focus is on maternal and child health and mortality rates.
"We want to make sure that mothers, pregnant women, are healthy and can have safe births, and that the birthing process is made safer because if you look at the number of births during the actual birthing process, that's where a number of maternal deaths happen," she added.
"We also want to make sure when babies are born, they are born as healthy as possible so that they can live through their early age, up to the age of five, with as strong and good health as possible."
The fetus fetishists are crowing and claiming credit. They report further confirmation from ReformaTory Shelly Glover. (Go read if you want to read Glover repeat word for word what Oda said.)
When Canadian foreign policy was developed by grown-ups, it was considered a good idea to listen to experts and people on the ground.
Now, our foreign policy is dictated by Christofascists and misogynists.
I'm no kind of politico or wanna-be political advisor. But if the so-far pretty useless opposition parties don't RIDE THIS HORSEY HARD, they're total fucking idiots and I'm gonna think about emigrating.
BONUS TRACK: Go read Antonia. She's PISSED.
MORE BONUS: Go read Joyce Arthur. She's PISSED too. (And, if you're a blogger, her piece has a ton of juicy links.)
AND EVEN MORE: Oh. Look. A poll on whether maternal health includes access to safe abortion.
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