Canada is showing herself to be a country that stands for the morals, values and ethics of Western culture. Peace, order, good government that makes room for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Canada makes every attempt to balance rights with responsibilities. No easy task in this entitled world in which we live.
Canada is again at the forefront regarding maternal and infant care in the third world. Building on the G8 Summit, 2010, Canada pledged another 3.5 billion dollars to the Saving Every Woman Every Child initiative for improving global maternal, newborn and child health. The for programmes include: investments in measles and rubella prevention through vaccination;increasing access to the diagnosis and treatment of malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea — the three leading causes of child deaths; delivering life-saving basic health care to people living in six of South Sudan’s ten states, with an emphasis on maternal, neonatal and child health; increasing services to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV and improve maternal, newborn and child health in Uganda, Swaziland and Zimbabwe; improving the nutrition of pregnant women and children in five of Ghana's poorest regions; helping improve the health of mothers and young children living in areas of Bangladesh that are not easily accessed by health care providers.
Joel Spicer of the Micronutrient Initiative explained that University of Toronto-developed vitamin-A capsules, Canadian supplements, account for 75% of the supply to the developing world which help to protect 150 million children from blindness and death that can result from a lack of the nutrient.
Prime Minister Harper said regarding the initiative:“It is good work, it is great work. It’s work that is making a difference between life and death, and so I believe that this work must not stop.”
At that time Tanzanian president, Mr. Kikwete, said “In my view it is not fair, not right for a women to die while giving life to another human being,” he said. “It’s supposed to be an act of celebration and at the end of the day it turns out to be an act of mourning.”
It appears that leaders in these countries want what Canada is providing. Yet there is controversy in Canada. Where is the money for abortion? It isn’t enough that Harper wants to prioritize life and life-saving procedures. To these people, feminists, women’s rights activists, women’s health must include access to abortion.
The Official Opposition critic for international development Hélène Laverdière noted at Save Every Woman Every Child that 47,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions. The question left hanging: Is it fair to leave out these women who die from botched abortions?
The McLeod Group, a pro-abortion and seemingly anti Harper group, says no, quoting Hilary Clinton’s position: "You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health, which includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortions."
Karl Nerenberg wrote in rabble.ca, “Harper's maternal and child health initiative also makes a point of withholding support from groups that include abortion in their arsenal of tools to improve the lot of women.”
It seems that maternal health, read “human rights of women and children” must include the right to access abortion. The McLeod Group is concerned for those who are raped or forced into marriage at a young age and not physically ready for pregnancy. These women and girls should have the same rights as women and girls in Canada- to access a next-day pill, or an abortion.
What arrogance. These people in the West think that all one has to do is build abortion facilities and they will come? In countries where women have few if any human rights, these Progressives think that the men will allow these women and girls to get an abortion on demand?
In Africa is it not best to provide care for pregnant women, help them with family planning, maternal and infant health, increase the possibility that their children will live as long as ours? Are these feminists suggesting that third world mothers should become members of the throw- away society? Don’t want that baby-throw it away. This is not their culture. This is ours.
My publisher, Peter Stockland, publisher of Convivium, said there is an air of “rectitudeness”, today, on the left, a mirror image of the era of right wing Calvinism so many generations ago. I suggest that fundamentalism is anathema to liberty. It obfuscates free-will, whether from the left or the right.
Stephen Harper’s government has chosen to give money for maternal care in Africa-but not for abortion-and he was pilloried by the left. He chose to provide money to promote life, not take life. And that’s the difference between Harper and the harpies. Abortion takes life. His programmes save life.
