It’s an interesting proposal, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to use his presidency of the G8 to push for global action on improving maternal and child health. In an op-ed published in the Toronto Star and Montreal’s La Presse, Harper says this it is unacceptable the 500,000 women die giving birth each year and 9 million children die before they reach the age of 5.
The goal of reducing the number of maternal deaths by three-quarters was established as a United Nations Millennium Goal in September of 2000, the target date, 2015. In his op-ed, the Prime Minister says it appears that this U.N. goal will go unfulfilled, “What makes it worse is that the bulk of the deaths during pregnancy – experts claim as many as 80 per cent – are easily preventable.”
Prime Minister Harper is taking his message first to Davos, Switzerland and the World Economic Forum where he will give a keynote address Thursday and then to the G8 hosted by Canada in June; it is time says Harper to “…make a tangible difference in maternal and child health.”
This is a lofty and laudable goal and in keeping with G8 meetings of late where themes are developed and used to push for a new goal, such as helping the developing world. On Tuesday, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda invited the media to a roundtable and question and answer session with non-governmental organizations that work in the area of maternal health and child development. Although Canada has no clear budget or proposals yet, reporters were told that in speaking to these experts, the government would find partners able to offer advice on what needed done.
It’s hard to argue with the idea of saving the lives of women giving birth or of ensuring that children do make it to their 5th birthday, yet when most people think of what kind of action would best accomplish such goals, they likely think of what the Prime Minister outlined in his article; clean water, nutrition, vaccinations, and better training of local health care workers. That’s not what everyone has in mind.
A group in Britain called the Optimum Population Trust advocates aggressive family planning and reducing the world’s population in order to save the environment and reduce global CO2 emissions. Such a group would normally not be of interest in Canada but the OPT has the ear of Gordon Brown’s Labour government, meaning that the G8 meeting is likely to hear about how we can save women from dying in child birth by preventing child birth.
Knowing this, I asked Minister Oda whether the Harper government was leaning toward the aggressive family planning model or favoured the building of local health clinics. While Minister Oda said she was seeking the best advice and not leaning in any direction at this point, one of the experts around the table nodded her head in agreement as I asked my question. Jennifer Kitts from Action Canada for Population and Development approached me excitedly after the news conference to tell me that family planning is key to reducing maternal mortality and infant deaths.
Kitts says that 30% of maternal deaths can be avoided and infant mortality can be reduced by 20% with proper family planning. Now I quickly understood how family planning could reduce maternal death but when I asked her to explain how family planning could help children live past their 5th birthday, Ms. Kitts became nervous and asked me to turn off my recorder. I asked her the question again and she told me she would have to do the interview later. The coin eventually dropped, the people at ACPD plan to reduce infant mortality by reducing the number of infants born. A major part of family planning for ACPD is abortion.
Now it really doesn’t matter which side of the abortion issue you fall on, when you hear that a government wants to reduce infant mortality, funding abortions in developing countries is likely not what comes to mind. When the Prime Minister says it is troubling that 9 million children die before their 5th birthday, most Canadians don’t think aborting children in developing countries so that they never have a birthday is the solution.
Funding of overseas abortion is a major point of conflict in American politics, not so much in Canada. The information I have is that Canada already funds abortions in developing countries through money given to United Nations bodies and certain NGOs, this fact does not seem to bother the majority of Canadians. Still, is this the answer that most of us thought Prime Minister Harper was aiming for as we read his op-ed over morning coffee? I doubt it and I doubt, from the words he wrote, that it is the answer he is seeking from government officials. So before he commits Canadian tax dollars to ending this scourge in the developing world, Prime Minister Harper owes it to all of us to say whether his solution will see more kids reach their 5th birthday or fewer kids reach birth.
Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.
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Comments
Wow! Thanks for the article. I had no idea this was going on. Yes to Steven Harper. He is definitely on the right track.
Sheila Newcombe
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