Part-Time Pundit: Friday Fax - Abortion Doesn't Lower Maternal Mortality (Duh)

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April 21, 2005

Friday Fax - Abortion Doesn't Lower Maternal Mortality (Duh)

Today's Friday Fax reports that the UNFPA has gotten the obvious, that women
killing their babies has nothing to do with maternal mortality, certainly not
anything that would LOWER it.

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Friday Fax

April 22, 2005
Volume 8, Number 18

UN Admits that Access to Abortion Not Effective at Reducing Maternal
Mortality

Earlier this month, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
released its annual report on maternal mortality around the world. The
report shows that the most important means of reducing maternal mortality
is the presence of a skilled birth attendant with access to adequate
emergency obstetrical care. The report contradicts UNFPA's earlier
strategy of focusing on access to contraceptives and legalized abortion as
the main means of reducing maternal mortality.

The report, entitled "Maternal Mortality Update 2004: Delivering Into
Good Hands," states that some 529,000 women died in 2000 as a result of
complications in pregnancy and childbirth, with 95 percent of deaths
occurring in Africa and Asia. Only 2,500 maternal deaths occurred in
developed countries, where the risk of maternal death is one in 2,800,
compared to one in 16 in sub-Saharan Africa.

The report acknowledges that "almost all maternal mortality is
avoidable," because "all five of the most life-threatening complications
can be treated by a professional health worker." Thus, "We know that
efficient emergency interventions for complications are key to saving
women's lives."

Dr. George Mulcaire-Jones of Maternal Life International, an
international provider of maternal health care, says that the report
"largely validates what the pro-life community has said all along: that
reducing maternal deaths comes down to the kind of skilled obstetrical
care given women - adequate training and clean, well-supplied birthing
facilities - and has little to do with introducing notions of reproductive
rights."

Yet the report states that alongside the provision of emergency
obstetric care and birth attendants, UNFPA's "three-pronged strategy" of
reducing maternal mortality focuses on "contraceptive services to prevent
unwanted pregnancy." A "rights-based approach" to maternal mortality,
which "promotes the empowerment of women," continues to "guide the design
and implementation of UNFPA's maternal mortality policy and programming."

According to Mulcaire-Jones, UNFPA's "three-pronged strategy is
flawed at the outset," because UNFPA channels the bulk of its funding into
contraception. "Contraceptive services should be separated from maternal
health and obstetrical services � both in terms of funding, accounting,
and program implementation. Only in this way will skilled care and safe,
clean and well-supplied health facilities receive the attention and
funding required to meaningfully reduce maternal death."

Mulcaire-Jones also stated that UNFPA's "rights-based approach" is
flawed for lack of "universal acknowledgment of the most fundamental right
of all � the right to life . . . UNFPA's stated policies in support of
abortion immediately create a conflict of rights by negating the right to
life of unborn children."

Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).
Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 427
New York, New York 10017
Phone: (212) 754-5948 Fax: (212) 754-9291
E-mail: c-fam@c-fam.org Website: www.c-fam.org
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Posted by John Bambenek at April 21, 2005 5:47 PM