A woman dies from a pregnancy-related cause somewhere in the world every minute, the television news said.
I went to the World Health Organization website and confirmed it:
"Every year some eight million women suffer pregnancy-related complications and over half a million die. In developing countries, one woman in 16 may die of pregnancy-related complications compared to one in 2800 in developed countries....
Most of these deaths can be averted even where resources are limited but, in order to do so, the right kind of information is needed upon which to base actions....
The probability that a 15-year-old girl will die from a complication related to pregnancy and childbirth during her lifetime is highest in Africa: 1 in 26. In the developed regions it is 1 in 7300. Of all 171 countries and territories for which estimates were made, Niger had the highest estimated lifetime risk of 1 in 7."
Half a million women dying per year is 500,000. There are 1440 minutes per day, or 525,600 per year. Yes, the figure is about the same.
Yet the Bush administration has withheld $34 million designated for the UN Population Fund and made other moves to restrict access to contraception and abortion around the world.
"In a series of regional meetings on population and development, the US has pressed other countries to back down from goals in family planning and women's reproductive rights, targets set in tandem with development plans and adopted with strong US support a decade ago. At the most recent meeting in Santiago, Chile, earlier this month, 40 countries rejected a US move to stress abstinence over contraception in a declaration, and thus bring it more in line with Bush administration priorities," reports a March, 2004, article in the Christian Science Monitor on the Common Dreams website, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0330-01.htm.
Our election will affect the health of women around the world.
Will the US again fund family planning clinics world-wide--or will it fund only those that recommend "abstinence-only" for contraception?
Millennium World Goal #5 is to reduce the the number of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth by three-quarters by 2015.
"MDGs 4 and 5, which aim to reduce child and maternal deaths, are considered the most "off-track" among the eight MDGs. This is a result of weak health systems in high-burden countries; the chronic shortage of health workers; underlying hunger and poverty, and a major lack of global political leadership on this issue," according to a July 8, 2008, report on the WHO website.
Vote next Tuesday for the candidate who will be best for the health of women world-wide--not just US women.
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