Our Maternal Care Plea in UNFPA Blog

The UNFPA blog Conversations for a Better World has published our It Affects Us All: Maternal Health Care.

UNFPA, That Rampant Killer

An anonymous commenter on this blog implicates this blog/website in "killing babies" because of our support for UNFPA.

So, any mention of baby killing in this new dispatch from Americans for UNFPA? No. Because there's none to mention.


--UNFPA Rushes to Save Haiti’s Mothers

It fills my heart with joy to see the American response to the crisis in Haiti. As the President of Americans for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, I know our generosity sends a message that Americans step-up for those in need no matter where they live around the world.

We understand that even in the face of crisis, women continue to give birth. Sadly, for women in Haiti, it means that many will give birth in cars and tents, on park benches and bare ground, and under blazing sun with little water. Those who are lucky will manage to get to overcrowded hospitals or makeshift maternity wards with intermittent electricity and minimal equipment and supplies.

One of UNFPA’s top priorities is protecting the lives of mothers and their newborns. UNFPA is supplying safe delivery and reproductive health kits to still-standing hospitals, field hospitals, and mobile clinics. The kits contain life-saving medicines, supplies, and equipment for sterile deliveries, Caesarean surgeries, and treatment of other obstetric complications. In coordination with partners UNFPA is working to get the kits to all health facilities that need them, so that doctors and nurses have the medicines and supplies needed to protect the lives of women and their newborns.

Watch NOW on PBS documenting UNFPA and other organizations on the ground in Haiti working to save the lives of mothers during childbirth.

UNFPA and partners have initiated mobile clinic activities in 250 spontaneous settlements. Additionally, 20,000 dignity kits have been delivered to the border area and are being transported to Port-au-Prince and other areas that have been impacted by the earthquake. The kits contain items such as sanitary napkins, diapers, anti-bacterial soap, and other hygiene and cleaning supplies that allow women to live with dignity.

Did you know? Taxpayers can count charitable contributions made for relief efforts in Haiti on either their 2009 or 2010 tax returns as long as they are made before March 1, 2010.

But, our work has just begun. If we stand together, we can rebuild Haiti to be stronger than it was before. I thank you for your support in saving the lives of Haiti’s mothers.

Sincerely,

Anika Rahman
President, Americans for UNFPA

PS. Change doesn’t happen over night. Please consider joining our monthly donor program and lending your sustained support to UNFPA’s life-saving work.--

Action Alert: Pregnant Women & Unborn Babies in Haiti

Pregnant women and their babies are highly vulnerable to death and injury in disaster situations. Please give to Americans for UNFPA in its work to aid the pregnant women and babies of Haiti.

Major Update to Our Directory

Under Help With Crisis Pregnancy and Beyond: Mother And Child Health (During and After Pregnancy), the Nonviolent Choice Directory lists the ministry of health, its equivalent, or other health authority for almost every country and territory on Earth.

We have just updated this list. Apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced, or worse, by our laggardness in doing so.

Worldwide Declines in Unborn & Already-Born Child Mortality

Some recent news:

--Global rates of birth-to-five child mortality are declining. (Press release on the forthcoming UNICEF State of the World's Child Report 2008)

--In the US, unborn child mortality from induced abortion in the US has dropped to its lowest rate since 1974. (Guttmacher Institute press release, January 17, 2008)

--This drop is apparently part of a bigger picture. According to an earlier Guttmacher report, "the number of induced abortions worldwide declined from nearly 46 million to under 42 million between 1995 and 2003." Hopefully there were fewer deaths and injuries of pregnant women, too.

It would be most unfortunate if these welcome stories became cause for complacency. The reasons for each of these declines need to be more fully understood and documented. They need to be made into amply funded action plans that refine or replace the ones in place now (if indeed they are in place now).

Better access to free or affordable reproductive health services, including but not limited to family planning, is one vital reason. The world's largest advocate and provider of reproductive health services is UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

Smear campaigns from contraception opponents have persistently depicted UNFPA as a ruthless promoter of abortions, including coerced abortions. The truth is markedly different.

UNFPA is not perfect, nor does it have a perfect history. But now its abundant work saves and improves born and unborn lives throughout the globe.

Please express gratitude to UNFPA by visiting its How You Can Help page. For example, USD $9 will supply one couple with contraceptives for two years; $20 will cover the costs of safe birthing kits for women in war or disaster situations.

Whatever you do, you will help to make those thankfully falling death rates fall even faster.