Robert Greenhill | abortion-news.info

When we improve the lives of women and girls, we all benefit

Rachel Pulfer
Special to The Globe and Mail
June 6, 2019

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced this week that Canada would invest $14-billion over 10 years – $1.4-billion a year – to improve global health for women and girls. Couched in that announcement: a commitment of $700-million for sexual and reproductive-health rights.

The funding puts Canada in a leadership position on women’s and girls’ health outcomes globally. It is grounded in bipartisan values, building on the Harper Conservatives’ focus on maternal health. It’s good, solid, evidence-based policy. And yet it’s being attacked as one more example of the Liberals’ myopic focus on gender over all else, election-year posturing, or too little, too late.

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-when-we-improve-the-lives-of-women-and-girls-we-all-benefit/

How a White House reversal affects a village in Madagascar
On an island where 10 women a day die from complications from pregnancy and childbirth, the funding cutoff by USAID because of its new abortion rules can have serious consequences.

By Annie Burns-Pieper
Special to the Star
Sat., Nov. 25, 2017

AMPAHO, MADAGASCAR—Ampaho feels like the edge of the world, somewhere most people, even in Madagascar, will never go.

The community of 240 small bamboo huts sits along a slow-moving waterway not far from the shore of the Indian Ocean on Madagascar’s east coast. The trip from the capital, Antananarivo, to Ampaho takes two days by car along the country’s winding roads followed by a meandering voyage on a rustic boat through the Panagalane canal.

On a rainy night five years ago, Marigrety Razafindramiarana’s daughter Marthe ran into trouble giving birth to her eighth child. The family had few options.

Continued at source: https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2017/11/25/how-a-white-house-reversal-affects-a-village-in-madagascar.html