Remember how abortion and birth control funding gets ping ponged between administrations?
The policy, dubbed the "Global Gag Rule" by abortion rights groups, was introduced by the administration of Ronald Reagan in 1984 in Mexico City, and was instituted that year. It was then overturned by President Bill Clinton in 1993 and restored by George W. Bush at the beginning of his office in 2001
Yes, that one.......
Under the hotly debated "Mexico City Policy," the U.S. government could not provide funding for family planning services to clinics or groups that offered abortion-related services overseas, even if funding for those activities came from non-government sources. It essentially barred recipients of U.S. foreign aid from promoting abortion as a method of family planning.
One of the very first things that Obama did when he took office? Rescind that unholy, draconian restriction set in place by two wingnut Presidents who were playing to their base.
Believe me, we noticed that up here in the Great White North. The "left wing fringes" (as we are called by our very own Prime Minister) Cheered!
Oh sure, some are not happy with the abortion language, but birth control is not a hotly contested issue. Birth Control saves lives. Condoms save lives. The only people in any doubt on that are the Pope and some of his followers, and other pro abstinence fanatics including of course, the Texas school boards.
Any imperfections in the contraceptive not visible to the eye could allow sperm, STD or HIV to pass through the latex...If a sperm cell can get through, how much more can the HIV virus only 1/450th the size of a sperm! (page 20 of report)
-From actual teaching materials in Texas.
Prime Minister Harper has been using the Right wing, US Republican handbook as often as he can in many ways. This government is backwards and.....nuts.
Just a few examples so you get an idea of the similarities:
Trickle down economics and favouring banks and corporations.
Working towards taking the reproductive rights of Canadian Women away. They would do that as soon as they got the chance.
Privatizing prisons, and installing mandatory sentencing legislation.
We even have our very own torture/possible war crimes scandal going on.
Climate change denial, placing religious right people in positions within government and scientific posts...And. AND. A post full of linky goodness.
You get the idea.
Recently the Harper Conservatives have been slipping in the polls due to the shuttering of parliament, which they did to escape the torture allegations.
So they decided to introduce legislation at the G8 talks coming up:
Harper’s announced new, foreign-aid focus on maternal health for this year’s G-8 and G-20 meetings in Canada.
Harper said back in January:
"Indeed, tragedy strikes all too frequently on those that can least afford it. The lack of the most basic services can lead to dire consequences, especially for the world's most vulnerable populations."
In the piece, Harper said it is "unacceptable" that 500,000 women die each year during pregnancy and childbirth and 9 million children die before their fifth birthday.
Sounds great hey? A Canadian Government standing up and nice things about Moms and kids...
Hold on for the other shoe, it will drop.
"We have chosen to focus the world’s lenses on saving the lives of mothers and children," Oda said. "When we know what we can do by providing clean water, vaccinations, better nutrition, as well as the most effective way is the training of health care workers and improving access for those women, that is what we are going to do."
And on Tuesday, during a Commons committee hearing, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon made clear that the maternal-health priority "does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning."
Liberals and New Democrats are incredulous, saying that this is a direct copy of the foreign aid policies of former U.S. president George W. Bush, who banned any support for aid organizations that supported abortion in developing countries for the eight years he was in office. Barack Obama reversed that ban within days of taking power last year.
Butta bing.
Every minute, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth and another 20-30 women suffer serious injury or disability. Almost all of these women die in developing countries of preventable or treatable complications, complications that rarely kill in rich countries.
The stark contrast – several orders of magnitude -- in the dangers faced by pregnant women in rich and poor countries underscores the inequality of the situation. Survival rates among the rich and poor women within countries show wide disparities as well. Being able to give birth safely, which is a human rights entitlement in principle, is in fact a privilege of the rich in many regions.
Motherless children are all over the world because of the continuing AIDS epidemic. A whole generation of orphans. But the Pope and The Harper Conservatives have their own theologically crafted "facts" which really look stupid against actual......Fact Facts...
A number of African countries have conducted large-scale HIV prevention initiatives in an effort to reduce the scale of their epidemics. Senegal, for example, responded early to the emergence of HIV with strong political and community leadership.5 It is impossible to predict how Senegal's epidemic would have progressed without intervention, but Senegal now has one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates in sub-Saharan Africa.
The situation in Uganda is similarly successful. HIV prevalence among pregnant women in Uganda fell from a high of around 30% in the early 1990s to around 10% in 2001;6 a change which is thought to be largely a result of intensive HIV prevention campaigns. Declines in HIV prevalence have also been seen in Kenya, Zimbabwe and urban areas of Zambia and Burkina Faso.
Womens health is part and parcel with our reproductive systems. You cannot separate them. Childrens lives are affected by the very same thing.
Children are starving all over the world, because there is already not enough food to go around for those that are here.
You cannot alleviate the suffering of women and children in many of these countries until they have choices about their reproductive lives.
Simple.
This whole "idea" was simply a shiny thing to distract from the Harper Conservatives torture scandal and dropping poll numbers.
Rick Mercer, a political comedian nails it, RMR: The Harper misdirection method.
Or as I say.....OHHHHH. LOOK! A flying purple sparkle pony.
(no accessories or an actual pony included)