UN: Kill children to lower childhood mortality?
I read this on Twitter earlier today and did a double take…
Did you read that as I did? 99% of pregnant mothers in developing countries die? I checked the source, a UN article, which stated:
Hundreds of thousands of women – 99% of them in the developing world – die annually as a result of pregnancy or childbirth.
That made more sense….
The article, btw, reports on the worldwide tragedy of child (under 5) and maternal mortality. While there has been improvement, here is the UN’s solution, per the piece:
“In Canada, I will urge leaders to support our global action plan on women’s and children’s health. In the 21st century, it is unacceptable that mothers should be dying during childbirth,” [UN Secretary-General] Mr. Ban [Ki-moon] told reporters…
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund… stated. “Therefore, to speed up progress, we must invest more in reproductive health for women and girls. If every woman received reproductive health care, maternal death and disability would cease to be the devastatingly common tragedy it is today.”
President Bush, you may recall, refused to fund UNFPA because it promotes abortion, including coerced abortion in China, although President Obama restored the funding. So when UNFPA mentions “reproductive health,” it is code for abortion.
This is corroborated by analyzing the “global action plan on women’s and children’s health,” which calls to:
Fully integrate the following into all primary health-care facilities: family planning, HIV/AIDS services, abortion-related care (where legal), and maternal, newborn and child care.
It is insane to advocate killing children as a solution to childhood mortality.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Makes sense doesn’t it? Let’s kill the children before they’re born, so that they wouldn’t die afterwards and spoil our “mortality rates” numbers. And then pat ourselves on the shoulder on what a “good job” we did lowering children mortality rates, while thousands of mothers grieve their unborn children and deal with post-abortion syndrome, but that’s not really our problem anymore at this point, is it?
I was really confused reading the Twitter comment because in Australia, “Hundreds and Thousands” are the little round multi-colour sugar sprinkles you put on the top of cakes and icecreams.
What’s the breakdown of deaths due to pregnancy compared to deaths due to childbirth?
If my understanding of maternal health is correct, death due to pregnancy that isn’t birth related is very rare. Abortion wouldn’t help at all, except to reduce the number of women reaching the end of pregnancy when the risky birth takes place. The answer is not interrupting those pregnancies, but offering better care for birth.
Sounds to me like the developing world needs less abortionists, and many more midwives and obstetricians.
This does not make any sense. If they truly want to decrease Mortality rates, they should promote REAL Maternal and Child health carelike reducing costs for prenatal care and having more obstetricians and midwives to aid the birth. Access to prenatal care is what is needed.
Are they re-defining pregnancy as a disease?
Other than that, maybe they should say that developing countries need better obstetricians/nurses to deliver the babies in proper conditions.
Has anyone actually asked what the women in these third world countries want? In many places, bearing children (especially sons) is what grants a woman position and security–and the more children, the better. Most of these women may well want their children, and want large families. Of course, the pro-choice-to-dismember-babies lobby wants to set up educational centers to brainwash them out of their freely made choice which is part of their cultural background… hey, that sounds like what they accuse us with doing in pregnancy resource centers!
Ashley, how dare you question the reproductive choices of those who have children close together.
My children were 19 months apart and we are all fine.
“Fully integrate the following into all primary health-care facilities: family planning, HIV/AIDS services, abortion-related care (where legal), and maternal, newborn and child care.”
Hm, the pro-choice advocates say that we only care about babies before they are born and not after..but if I look at this list I can’t help but notice child care comes AFTER everything else. First we have to give them ‘family planning’ so they get more promiscuous, then we treat them for the diseases spread by behavior, then we’ll kill the babies, oh and then way after all that, maybe some maternal and newborn care.
Ashley, check out “The Theology of the Body.” It will help dispel myths about Catholic teaching and will enlighten you so that you can tackle that argument from a place of knowledge not rhetoric.
Why do they want to save these women if allegedly we’re overpopulated as it is? And it reduces carbon in the atmosphere, yes? Where are the environmental groups demanding to let them die because it’s good for the planet?
I agree M and ycw. I would think that prenatal care and preventive care in general would greatly help the situation. Also, ycw, in many developing countries, large families are highly valued and are a form of social security in old age.
I’ll say it again — the most effective way to reduce the birth rate is to raise the economic and social status of women!
I have a friend whose daughter is going to college for midwifery right now. She will then move to Africa as a missionary, helping women who wouldn’t otherwise have prenatal care or professional help during the delivery of their baby. Thank you Courtney for seeing this need and taking action!!!
Top 20 List of Lame Excuses Made by Falsehood-Spreading CINOs for non-Mass Attendence
14. “because giving birth 10 times in a row like the Catholic church wants you to actually leads to more infant deaths.”
Stay tuned for number 15!
Ditto on what ycw said @ 9:05.
* * *
“The mantra is “three to five saves lives….”
Ashley,
Who originated the phrase? I bet it’s an organization that profits from birth control and abortion. Please prove me wrong.
I agree with the idea that abortion is NOT “reproductive health care” or any other kind of “health care”. Prenatal care is health care. Well-baby/child check-ups are health care.
I wish they’d start counting abortions with the child-mortality statistics. “Pre-birth children; homicide”. And no, I’m not using “homicide” in the legal term as a synonym for “murder”, as in an illegal homicide… I’m using “homicide” as a general discriptive word meaning the child is dead because someone killed them. I wish at the very minimum it would be legally mandated to report all abortions, as with other deaths.
Gee, wouldn’t THAT really be an eye-opener?
Ashley, it doesn’t do much good to throw around your Catholic bona fides, as you have done here more than once, and at the same time display such complete ignorance about Catholic teaching.
Catholic couples can indeed legitimately space their children, just not by using artificial contraception. There is something called Natural Family Planning that makes use of the woman’s natural reproductive cycle; it is highly effective — and Church approved.
Ashely, I’ve read that 18 months is the recommended time between pregnancies. Interestingly enough, that is about how often the average woman will conceive naturally if she is having regular intercourse and she and her partner have average fertility.
Doing nothing at all, my kids are spaced almost exactly 3 years between the first two, and 2 years between the 2nd and 3rd.
If a woman is nursing (which is likely in 3rd world countries where formula is often not available) she has natural protection from pregnancy for 6 months as long as she hasn’t began to have periods again. It’s called the LAM and is natures way to space children.
“Then again fundies like to lie about how condoms don’t work. They do, but whatever.”
The problem with condoms is that they don’t work over a reproductive lifetime. Sure, you have about a 15% chance of getting pregnant in the first year. That might be an acceptable risk for some.
However, the more years you use condoms, the more likely you are to get pregnant or get an STD.
By the time you’ve used them for 10 years, it’s almost certain you’ll have at least 1 unplanned pregnancy, even if you’ve used them perfectly.
The same goes for disease transfer. It gives people a false sense of security.
Ashley, not everyone is like you and wants to avoid children. Some people enjoy having babies, having sex, and large families. If we aren’t supposed to make value judgments about those who choose abortion, why do you make value judgments about other people’s life choices–how they follow their religion, space their children, conduct their marriage and their sex lives? Is it okay to be judgmental if it saves or improves lives? If so, why are you telling us not to judge those who have and perform abortions, or those who use birth control?
I don’t use birth control or NFP. I don’t want to. I also exclusively breastfeed, so my fertility doesn’t come back right away. When women do as God designed and breastfeed on demand, it can be a long time before one’s fertility returns–that’s why my children weren’t 10 months apart (it would have been fine with me if they were).
I believe that what God created was good. I believe that if I do as God designed (feeding my baby primarily breastmilk), as long as everything happens naturally, I will not get pregnant until it is safe for the baby and I. (Obviously if I don’t give birth naturally, that may not be the case, though.)
My sex life is none of your business, but I have no desire to abstain, introduce latex, or introduce chemicals into that relationship. I maintain that any married person who has sex with a piece of rubber or only has sex when they are not fertile is missing out. My husband provides for us; we are not a burden on anyone; so you don’t get to judge our lifestyle.
I wasn’t raised a Christian, but Christ called me out of the world to follow Him. As I understand the Bible, that means supporting and following my husband, accepting children as gifts and blessings, and doing my best to be a good steward of all he has given us. And there is one more thing he requires of me: that I proclaim to others the freedom and the good news I have found.
Ashley, I am a sinner. I’ve sinned many times–against my family, against my husband, against acquaintances, but especially against God. But even though I could do nothing, am nothing, God loved me and reached out to me. God loved me not because of what I was–proud, rude, egocentric, ungrateful–but because of who He is–all Good, all God. Because He is good, He offered me a free gift–to be separated from my sin and united with Him. To claim His righteousness as my own. To one day spend eternity in a perfect place. To be adopted as His daughter–a daughter of God Himself. What does the world have to offer in comparison? Whatever small pleasure I might get taking my way instead of His pales in comparison to eternity. And I think that following His way, even when it is hard, brings a truly deep and lasting joy even in this life.
Ashley, don’t believe me. Believe Him who said:
I am the way, the truth, and the light; no one comes to the Father except through me.
But the amazing thing is not that there is only one way; it is that there is any way at all for human beings who continually do the wrong thing to be not just accepted but loved by a holy and perfect God. Even people like me–and if you desire, you.
Sadly, Ashely, that rate would likely remain the same if they had condoms for the reasons I mentioned above. Condoms simply aren’t good birth control for the entire reproductive lifespan if a woman wishes to NEVER get pregnant.
A bit off topic, but I wonder why the diaphragm doesn’t get more attention. It has about the same effective rate as condoms, and is something that a woman can use if her partner won’t wear condoms. Obviously it doesn’t have the disease protection, which is a big factor, but I think it is interesting that it almost never talked about anymore.
Ashley, my aunt is a nun, too. She works in a poor Tiajuana barrio. And she doesn’t report what you do. Yes, there’s a need, and that’s why she’s there. But she’s not judging women who have lots of kids and see that as good and normal.
So, whatever, I can claim Catholic creds, too, and we see things differently. You seem to want to blame priests and authority, but you don’t seem to have a great handle on Catholic teaching regarding spacing of children.
People would take your opinion more seriously if you did.
I hope in your searching (praying for your healing, btw) you will come to read lots of authoritative sources on the life issues and speak to lots of Catholics living out Church teaching in married life.
My husband and I are considered ‘working poor’ and have found the Church’s teaching quite liberating in the true sense. We’ve spaced when we had to be responsible, and we’ve been able to be generous, too. We have three boys and are hoping to be expecting soon, God willing.
“because giving birth 10 times in a row like the Catholic church wants you to …”
Ashley you specifically said it was “the Catholic Church” who had the policy of maximum child-bearing. Now you say it’s some individual priests in poor countries. Not the same thing. Catholic church teaching is what is promulgated in the Magisterium by the Pope and bishops, not what some individual priest in some corner of the world misunderstands it to be. But being Catholic, you knew that, right?
Presuming that what you say is really true, it seems that those priests need an education in what the Church actually teaches.
They would be much better of teaching demanding husbands about showing some respect for their wives’ dignity — and teaching them natural family spacing. That way these couples CAN make wise decisions for themselves about the size of their families, without having to be dependent on the pills and condoms flung at them by the First World elite, who look on poor Third-World populations like some kind of insect whose numbers need to be kept down. All of this too, is solid Catholic Church teaching.
I don’t know if you know how Natural Family Planning works, but by its very nature, it helps a man show respect for his wife’s dignity by making sure that all decisions about sexual relations and when they want to have children are made jointly. That is one of its beauties.
“Then again fundies like to lie about how condoms don’t work. They do, but whatever.”
As much as you rip on the Catholic church and it’s religious, you’d think you’d find a religion that would stroke your ego and support your choice to have unmarried sex with abusive jerks and then abort.
Maybe your wealthy aunt who is a nun could have bought you some condoms that you claim work so well in order that you could have prevented getting pregnant with the child you aborted.
It just dawned on me. 99% of the women in developing countries die from pregnancy or childbirth?
Those numbers are totally made up… The math would make it unsustainable for those countries to have a population it all.
Also, the Catholic Church doesn’t mandate a to have a boatload of kids. That was also made up.
NFP is safe, easy, and natural. Doesn’t pollute the water supplies like the pill.
Ashley,
You seem to suspect much but know little.
In your mind, women who you disagree with you or those who stand up to you have issues with their sexuality, try to hard to be sexy or are anti-sex. This site revolves around the rights of the unborn which does tend to come back to issues surrounding sex.
Just today you cut on Lori Ziganto stating she “is one of those conservative women who tries WAY too hard to come off as sexy.” That’s pot/kettle when just recently I saw a pic on your site. Why did you take off the pic of you sitting on a bed wearing a bikini? I don’t remember the topic of conversation but it was something about you being voted the ‘hottest’ something or other. Way to fight to have women taken seriously. Did BF or Aunt Nun tell you it wasn’t in your best interest to keep this photo up? I know, I know, in your mind, I am just anti-sex and jealous of such a ‘hottie’.
You exploit your sexuality but then accuse other women of having issues with theirs. Anyone who posts a pic of themselves in a bikini on the internet has let the world know where their self-worth lies.
I don’t suspect you have issues with healthy sexual behavior, I know it.
Ashley, NFP, using the fertility awareness or sypmo-thermal method (this is not the same as the rythm method!) when taught and used correctly and consistantly is a valid and effective birth-spacing method, with a 95-98 sucess rate. Also, one does not need to be Catholic or of any faith to use this method, there are many other health-based reasons why individuals choose this method. I recommend checking out the following book: Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. However with that said, NFP is best used in stable, monogamous relationship and like most hormonal birth control methods, NFP does not protect against STDs, only condoms do. In fact, many couples using NFP choose to use a condom as a back-up method all the time or on a woman’s fertile days, instead of abstaining. It’s time for Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice movement to get up to date on NFP as a a valid birth control option, it’s no longer like it used to be!
Ashley,
I am glad you survived your promiscuity and drunkeness. Good luck in a lasting monogamous relationship. But why do you keep blaming priests for “making” women have large families? Are you saying priests are forcing men and women to have intercourse?
Oh but NFP is so much more than just using OTC ovulation moniters from the store, it consists of learning to understand your body and recognizing and recording the physical changes, (cervical position, cervical mucus, and body temp) in your body which are triggered by hormone level changes and signals ovulation.
Ashley, check out the various forms of nfp, search ‘Billings model’ or ‘Creighton model nfp’, for example.
Most involve very little, if any, cost. We spend maybe $25/ year on charts and stickers, and that’s about it now that we know the system.
The low cost of charting versus store tests is a huge plus for families living in poverty. Not that I advocate pushing family limits on anyone, but nfp has been effective and helpful for women and their families who need it.
What I would like to know is why the focus on more abortion access? I think the real (and most obvious) issue here is a lack of affordable and safe pre- and postnatal care. These women and their children need safer hospital and clinics, and more trained midwifes and OBs – not abortion!
Do we seriously think these women are longing for us to step in and kill off their babies for them so that they don’t have to bury them themselves? Or is it more likely that they wish childbirth could be safer?
Throwing condoms and abortions at them is not the answer. There is still too much superstition and lack of knowledge there about the transmission of HIV, for example, and the inequality of women. Prostitution and promiscuity is already rampant – condoms are not the answer either. Why? Because men refuse to use them, or rip holes in them, for example. Until these men start to care about women as persons and care about stopping the spread of disease, condoms are nothing but a joke to them.
The place to start is not in providing more abortion access for these women – we need to first and foremost provide them with safe childbirth and education! A woman shouldn’t have to choose abortion only because she’s afraid of dying in childbirth! What kind of a choice is that?! Providing safe childbirth and health eduction will reduce mortality rates, unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Abortion and foreign contraceptives will not.
“The anti-contraception people seem to refuse to accept that women don’t want to be pregnant at all times, that they sometimes (or most of the time) want to AVOID it. ”
Ashley @ 10:52,
It really goes without saying – if a society contracepts on a large scale, it will abort on a large scale. “Unwanted” pregnancy is the impetus for both.
If you want to go to the extreme and call pro-lifers “anti-sex”, you should be prepared to refute the assertion that pro-aborts are “sex-obsessed”. Is that the direction you want the argument to take?
The position that one should not have sex if one doesn’t want babies does not make one anti-sex. I really enjoy sex. I have sex a lot. With my husband. And I want babies.
Politically, I don’t care what method of birth control people use as long as it doesn’t kill babies. I don’t have any desire to make non-abortifacient birth-control illegal (though I won’t shed any tears or work to bring it back if that happens). In terms of religion, I think that Christians should not be preventing pregnancy outside of grave reasons–which could include spacing if there is a medical reason such as a C-section in the previous pregnancy, but in general, breastfeeding should lead to pregnancies spaced far enough apart. I think Christians should be accepting the children that God sends them, not preventing them. I love big families and I think God designed women to be able to have more than 2.5 kids (the average before birth control was widespread was 6, by the way–not 10 or 19). I exhort others to consider this path, but I would not force it on anyone.
I am proudly pro-marriage, pro-sex, pro-family, pro-choice, pro-kids, and pro-natalist.
“And I know someone is going to come back and promote the wildly unpopular idea that you should never have sex without wanting to get pregnant.”
Ashley, Do you have any regrets about choosing to have sex with the abusive jerk BF or any of the men you were admittingly promiscuous with following your abortion in attempts to deal with the abortion?
If you are so opposed to the idea of getting pregnant that you would be desperate enough to abort your offspring if pregnancy occurs, you should really think long and hard about your choice to have sex.
“wildly unpopular idea”? I know this may be hard to believe Ashley, but life is not a popularity contest to everyone.
“Having sex only for procreation sounds like the most ridiculous, dreary, and passionless relationship ever.”
No one here has said they have sex only when they want to procreate. I certainly never said anything near this but again you assume and exaggerate.
Thanks for answering my question that lets me know that you have no regrets about having sex with someone you say abused you as well as stating you have no regrets about using others for sex (and allowing them to use you) in attempts to get over a tramatic event like abortion. What wonderful fulfilling relationships full of passion (and full of enpowering sexual release, right?).
Actually, I don’t think your sex-addiction is funny at all but rather sad.
“Birth spacing is good for mothers and children. The mantra is “three to five saves lives,” because giving birth 10 times in a row like the Catholic church wants you to actually leads to more infant deaths.”
Gee, false premises much?
Complete lack of real data.
Anyway, 99% of maternal deaths are indeed in the third world. No surprise, but it could not have been worded more awkwardly.
Three to five saves lives only when the risk is really high due to the utter lack of health care. In developed countries, the risk is so low that it is negligible for most women. Breastfeeding spaces babies naturally anyway. You know, nature really does work most of the time.
Personally, I think birth control is appropriate for those who want to use it and certainly for those who are extremely poor and want it. Forcing it is creepy. However, data show that the strongest indicator of family size is the number of children the woman desires not the availability of contraception. Birthrates began falling before contraception became widely available.
hippie @ 5:01,
“Breastfeeding spaces babies naturally anyway.”
True, but I think the statement should be qualified.
“Breastfeeding exclusively spaces babies naturally anyway.”
From personal experience, I can say a woman can ovulate when breastfeeding and supplementing with milk.
I became pregnant but then miscarried at 3 months gestation. Natural spacing ultimately occurred but I would have preferred it hadn’t happened that way, obviously.
Perhaps a medical person could comment further.