Mr. Bush, This is Pro-Life?

We talk a lot on Daily Kos about reproductive rights, family planning and abortion, but seldom in the context of the Third World.  NYT Columnist Nicholas Kristof gives us a look at the reality some rural African women face.  Here is a reprint of the NYT column at truthout.org.

The Bush administration's policy against funding the UN Population Fund has real consequences for these women, according to Kristof:

Mr. Bush and other conservatives have blocked funds for the U.N. Population Fund because they're concerned about its involvement in China. They're right to be appalled by forced sterilizations and abortions in China, and they have the best of intentions. But they're wrong to blame the Population Fund, which has been pushing China to ease the coercion - and in any case the solution isn't to let African women die. (Two American women have started a wonderful grass-roots organization that seeks to make up for the Bush cuts with private donations; its website is www.34millionfriends.org.)

For just $42 a woman can receive a life or health saving caesarian section, but for these women, that is often too much:

Pregnant women die constantly here because they can't afford treatment costing just a few dollars. Sometimes the doctors and nurses reach into their own pockets to help a patient, but they can't do so every time.

    "It depends on the mood," Dr. Kayode said. "If the [staff] feel they can't pay out again, then you just wait and watch. And sometimes she dies."

    A few days earlier, a pregnant woman had arrived with a dangerously high blood pressure of 250 over 130; it was her 12th pregnancy. Dr. Kayode prescribed a medicine called Clonidine for the hypertension, but she did not have the $13 to buy it. Nor could she afford $42 for a Caesarean that she needed.

    During childbirth, right here in this hospital, she hemorrhaged and bled to death.

I can't vouch for the organization www.34millionfriends.org mentioned above, but read the article and consider helping if you can.  
  Footnote from their website:

The idea behind this project is to ask 34 million Americans to donate at least $1 and in turn, send a message to our government.

•  How sad

  African and Asian women are also a victim of the Republicans' war on women.

  Thank you for posting & recommended.

  by Unstable Isotope on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 05:42:27 PM PDT

  •  The poor always pay...

    by flo58 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 06:02:10 PM PDT

•  The title

  of Kristof's piece suggests that he thinks he can appeal to Bush's conscience...trouble is, Bush doesn't have one. Bush doesn't give a rat's ass who is harmed by his "pro-life" policies.

  by Alice in Florida on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 05:52:03 PM PDT

  •  I wish you were wrong.

    Maybe some of his supporters are more amenable to persuasion?  We can only hope...

    by flo58 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 05:53:41 PM PDT

•  Tip Jar

  I never put up a jar before, but I will try it this once.  

  by flo58 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 05:52:47 PM PDT

  •  Maybe you'll consider

    doing it more often. ;-)

    This is an important story about an ongoing and entirely needless tragedy, and I thank you for posting it.

    by moiv on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 07:16:21 PM PDT

    •  Thank YOU!

      I appreciate your support as well as the information you bring to the table.  I have learned a lot from you about these issues.  If this can help, I am happy.  

      It really takes so little money for so MUCH good.  It is a crime that Bush and "right to life" crowd allow -- and encourage -- it to happen.

      by flo58 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 07:25:12 PM PDT

      •  They do much worse

        than allow and encourage it. They insist upon it.

        I subscribe to a listserve for women's health care providers worldwide, and there are days when I can hardly bear to read what I find in my mailbox.

        Last year Bush's refusal to fund UNFPA closed 6 clinics in Kenya alone, clinics that provided full-service primary health care in areas so remote that people walked for days to reach them.

        Because part of their mission was family planning -- and since they couldn't afford to establish completely separate facilites for their OB/GYN services to women -- those clinics lost their funding in its entirety. Now there are huge rural populations in Kenya that have no access to any type of health care at all.

        We will never know how many people are dead because of Bush's worldwide pro-"life" crusade.

        by moiv on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 07:46:51 PM PDT

•  Kudos to Kristof.

  He's written about this before -- and was one of the earliest pundits to nail Bush on this sort of thing.  He began hitting these themes right there in 2001.

  I know, I know, at his worst, Kristof is infuriating, thinking, I'm a mature liberal; therefore I must spend 33% of my time bashing liberals, whether they deserve it or not, and praising conservatives, whether they deserve it or not.  But at his best he is wonderful -- as here.

  by jem6x on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 06:02:16 PM PDT

  •  Credit where credit is due

    I believe in giving credit where is due.  The wisest can be wrong.  The stupidest can be right.  It is important to keep analyzing and considering imo so that you can tell the difference.  If you always agree with someone just because of who he is, you risk becoming, yourself, no better than a Bush crony.

    by flo58 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 06:05:36 PM PDT

•  Mr. Bush

  has never been pro-life, but only pro-birth, even when it ends in a bloody agony of death.

  The United Nations Population Fund also prevents and treats obstetric fistula, but that horrible condition is of no importance to Mr. Bush, either. After all, the only reason a woman with obstetric fistula has feces dribbling out of her vagina in the first place is that she's already given birth, and therefore is no longer worthy of interest.

  Thousands more women die from postpartum infection for the lack of a safe birth kit consisting only of a sterile plastic sheet, a bar of soap, clean dental floss and a sterile razor blade packed in a simple Ziplock bag. A safe birth kit saves a woman's life for about 50¢, but since they are distributed by UNFPA, Mr. Bush thinks that's too high a price to pay.

  So of course women die . . . but there will always be more where they came from.

  This is the world the lords of darkness have made. Lament and be sad in it.

  by moiv on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 06:56:10 PM PDT

•  These people

  see denying health care as a means to keep populations of "others" in check...they are afraid if we start offering reasonable health and reproductive care that too many of them will actually live.  They really do believe in Darwinism...survival of the fittest.  Funny how they've managed to convince so many that this is part of Christianity.

  by tjb22 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 08:04:51 PM PDT

  •  Bur lack of women's health care cuts both ways

    For example, the woman discussed in the article above had 10 pregnancies before this one killed her.  That means potentially 9 motherless kids out there -- if the rest of the kids survived.  If they want to decrease population, this is a foolish way to do it.  All they accomplish by this is a large population living at the edge of starvation.  All they are doing is foisting their medieval religious ideas on the UN.  

    by flo58 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 08:14:41 PM PDT

    •  They believe that this is natures

      way of keeping the population in check...they don't care about 10 motherless children...they are, in fact, assuming that without proper parental care many of these will die.  Again...survival of the fittest...its really their view of nature and the sad thing is that there are some who could actually square this with their so-called religious beliefs.

      by tjb22 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 08:18:38 PM PDT

      •  I don't think I would go as far as you do,

        but if I am honest, I have to agree that those who run this country believe in making people fend for themselves -- Katrina relief is Exhibit A.    Only the strongest and richest should survive.  

        There is also a huge component of racism in our foreign policy.  Imagine how differently we would treat these women if they were Norwegian or Hungarian. I do not believe these women would be left to suffer if they were white.  Again, Katrina is my Exhibit A.  

        by flo58 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 08:28:15 PM PDT

        •  No, they would not.

          Absolutely...its the reason we went to war in the Balkans to stop a genocide but not in Africa.  I'm not sure how many of these people realize the inherent racism of the positions, but I've heard a lot of them talk about how disease is "natures way" of keeping the population in check.  Ofcourse, its an easier standard to apply to a population that doesn't look like you, isn't it?

          by tjb22 on Sun Oct 23, 2005 at 08:31:52 PM PDT