Maternal health is not about “politics”
It must have seemed like such a motherhood issue that no one could object. Stephen Harper announced that he would use his presidency of the G8 to push for improvements in maternal health. It is, after all, one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
The MDGs are comprised of eight goals agreed to at a UN summit in 2000, the best known of which is to halve extreme poverty. The deadline for meeting the goals is 2015.
In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Harper announced, "As president of the G8, Canada will champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world's most vulnerable regions." He referred to the more than 500,000 women who die each year in pregnancy, most from the developing world.
Canada will host the G8 in July. It is customary for the president and host to introduce an initiative and encourage others to join. When Canada last hosted the G8, Paul Martin was prime minister, and he championed development funding for Africa.
Despite seeming good intentions, it did not take long for the wheels to come off maternal health. First, Brian Lilley, an Ottawa reporter, wrote that the minister for international cooperation, Bev Oda, admitted that the plans for the maternal health initiative are still embryonic. She hosted a round table to seek advice and partners to give guidance to the government.
One of the potential partners, Action Canada for Population and Development, suggested that "family planning" is the answer to helping mothers. Unfortunately, ACPD's idea of "family planning" includes abortion, according to Lilley. Oddly enough, ACPD seems to have removed certain resources from their website so it is hard to verify.
Maternal health
The link between maternal health and a pro-choice organization quickly made the rounds on Christian pro-life, pro-family blogs. Christians started to express concern about what direction this initiative would take.
On February 2, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, weighed in on the issue, asking Harper to "keep ideology out of the issue." Somehow Ignatieff thought that maternal health related to abortion and asked that this initiative include "women's reproductive rights and access to contraception."
Unfortunately, Ignatieff did not consult with his caucus before making the strongest pro-choice statements of any Liberal leader. One former Liberal MP, Paul Szabo, expressed surprise at the statement and said that there is no consensus among Liberals on the issue of abortion. Several current Liberal MPs are pro-life, although none have publicly criticized their leader on this issue.
Later in the week, Toronto's archbishop Thomas Collins issued a statement expressing concern that a positive initiative like maternal health could be turned into something negative by Ignatieff's proposal that "in no way serves to improve the health of mothers or children."
On Wednesday, former NDP leader and UN envoy on HIV/AIDS Stephen Lewis sharply criticized the prime minister's initiative. An article in Embassy magazine quoted Lewis saying that this was "crass, political opportunism."
It is astonishing to see an advocate for international development criticizing a government initiative on one of the MDGs. They are, after all, a UN initiative. If you check the UN website, it shows that the least progress has been made on maternal health of all the MDGs.
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett argued that it is impossible to protect maternal health without access to safe abortions. Apparently, it is a rights issue, not really a health issue.
But Harper wants to provide some fairly basic needs like clean water, nutrition and vitamins. These are some initiatives that can be fairly inexpensive.
Clearly, you can't take on every issue. And if "maternal health" includes abortion, many Canadians will oppose it.
It is sad that something we could all get behind gets derailed by some crass, political opportunism on the part of other political parties. And we wonder why Parliament seems so dysfunctional.
Dear Readers:
ChristianWeek relies on your generous support. please take a minute and donate to help give voice to stories that inform, encourage and inspire.
Donations of $20 or more will receive a charitable receipt.Thank you, from Christianweek.
