Breeding grounds

“Missing” A message about maternal mortality from Big Yellow Taxi on Vimeo.

Many right-whingers think I bash Prime Minister Stephen Harper for sport.

Wrong. I bash Harper because just about everything he does, at least when it comes to women, is wrong.

Just look how Canadian women have fared throughout his reign rule government. According to the World Economic Forum, which publishes an annual Global Gender Gap Index, Canada slipped from 14th place to 25th.

So guess where Harper was last week, banging the drum for his new cause -- women? (This is a spoof video. Pity.)

That's why I wrote Friday's column, which is still generating hits and emails. I've added some links.

Tuesday, on the Star's op-ed page, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he would "mobilize" world leaders to save the lives of women and children around the world.

"As president of the G8 in 2010," he wrote, "Canada will champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world's poorest regions."

He cited some horrifying statistics: "Each year, it is estimated that 500,000 women lose their lives during pregnancy or childbirth. Further, an astonishing 9 million children die before their fifth birthday."

Hmm. These are numbers I have repeatedly noted in this column and on my blog – often to the derision of Harper supporters.(In fact I already posted the UNICEF video you see above last March. But I am reposting it.)

Anyway, there's another statistic, one he conveniently left out. According to the same sources, some 70,000 women a year die from botched illegal abortions.

But let's not go there today.

Now, I am the last person on Earth not to applaud any concerted effort to help women. Feminists have long said that women's rights are human rights – an idea that is finally sinking in among Western leaders.

Improve the lot of women, improve the lives of all.

As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton observed this month, "Well, you know the proverb, `Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime'? Well, if you teach a woman to fish, she'll feed the whole village."

But Harper didn't mention anything about women getting educations or achieving economic parity.

As internationally known human rights activist Stephen Lewis told me Wednesday night, "None of the spectrum of women's rights and issues is encompassed in this announcement.

It doesn't include sexual violence, child marriage, sexual trafficking, female genital mutilation, economic autonomy, political representation, land rights or inheritance rights.

It includes none of the panoply of women's issues which consign women to subordinate positions around the world."

Hardly surprising considering Harper's government record on everything from women's reproductive rights to equality.

And so he plans to help women only as baby-makers while ignoring all the other Millennium Goals to end Poverty by 2015 on the international agenda, including "environmental sustainability."

(Incidentally, many NGOs, including CIDA, report that it's women who suffer most from climate change. Whether they have to walk farther to find water, food or fuel for cooking, their burdens are increased.)

What's more, as Lewis emphasized, other nations have been on board what's known as the Clinton Global Initiative for more than two years. In 2007, Norway and the Netherlands committed $1.2 billion to this. Last year, another $5.3 billion was kicked in from other sources.

But, on Tuesday, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda would not tell media how much Canada is actually committing.

"It takes a lot of chutzpah to pretend that somehow you're championing something that others have championed so vigorously before you," Lewis said.

It gets better – or worse, depending on your perspective.

On Wednesday, Liberal Status of Women critic Anita Neville told me, "Mr. Harper is not looking at these issues in Canada. Take a look at the aboriginal population. Look at maternal health care here. He's got a lot of work to do here. "

Indeed, this week, a massive new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that Inuit infants die at more than three times the rate of other Canadian babies.

Last week, the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health reported on Canada's sinking infant mortality record – we're now 24th in the world – while revealing Saskatchewan's shocking numbers of aboriginal infant deaths. (There's a PDF Download Pages from PaedsJan2010_Blues here.)

And yet, Saskatoon Conservative MP Brad Trost is campaigning to eliminate Canada's funding to the International Planned Parenthood Federation – which is not only about contraception but also about maternal health care.

Concludes Lewis: "I think it's pretty cynical but, now that they're doing it, maybe they'll be forced into making some financial commitment."

Women are watching, and waiting.

Lots of Broadsides' pals also weighed in on the subject. Montreal Simon, Dammit Janet and StageLeft to name a few.

And here's my longtime friend Gerry Caplan in that other paper.

I said that maternal and child health could he helped significantly by inexpensive interventions, as has been shown in many countries. But if anyone is genuinely interested in the overall well-being of women and children, which ultimately will determine both their quality of life and their mortality, larger issues of development and women's rights must be pursued diligently. Birth control, abortion, sexual violence, child marriage, land and inheritance rights, political rights – all these issues related to women's subordination must be faced if their overall physical and mental health is to be improved. Is Mr. Harper ready to sign on to this program?

I'm sure the Prime Minster is well aware that his government cut off funding for Kairos, the church-backed Canadian NGO. I wonder if anyone has told him that Kairos worked in the Congo with a Congolese group that was planning to set up a legal clinic to protect women's rights. One of its intended projects was to support Congolese women who had been raped. Renewing the Kairos CIDA grant would go a long way to convincing Canadians that he is sincere in his concern for women's health.

(The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof wrote this about life for women in the Congo just the other day.)

Here are some other things that didn't make the final cut.

BQ MP Nicole Demers emailed me to say

It is with surprise that I learned of Stephen Harper's desire to help the women and children of the world. How can he be so callous when one million Canadian children don't have enough to eat? You have to wonder how does he want to help them? What does he hope to get from it, especially when he cut off help to some of the poorest countries? What about those women and children?

I heard from a reader who wanted to point out that, in spite of what I see as hypocrisy and opportunism on Harper's part, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada applauded his announcement. 

But guess who wasn't happy? The HarperCon Cheering Squad over at the anti-choice Lifesite News.

Pro-life leaders are calling on Canadians to contact the Prime Minister and International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda, and ask them to ensure that the government does not cave in to pressure to push abortion and population control as part of the initiative.

No, because, after all, handing out contraception, or helping women to get abortions when they already have more mouths than they can feed or care for, just wouldn't be fair to women, right? And how come all the anti-choice ''leaders'' quoted are, um, men?

Finally, this incredible piece.

Pro-life leaders are calling on Canadians to contact the Prime Minister and International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda, and ask them to ensure that the government does not cave in to pressure to push abortion and population control as part of the initiative.

<SNIP>

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.

I don't know why Kitts would be so skittish. It's easy to answer the question. A woman not exhausted by multiple childbirths -- not to mention inferior nutrition and bigger burdens than the menfolk -- can't adequately care for too many children. This is why 70,000 women a year die from botched illegal abortions. That is why so many women die in childbirth. This is why so many kids don't make it to age 5.

Your chances of survival aas a child in these hellholes aren't great if your mother is dead.

But, with these people, the fetus reigns supreme.

As for women, well, dead or alive, they're just a political means to an end ...

United Nations Millennium Campaign - Goal 5- Maternal Health - More amazing video clips are a click away

Comments

[Jim M]

Why does Stephen Harper remind me of the doctor who is more worried about missing tee-off time than whatever is wrong with his patients? The doctor with golf ball eyes?

[Holly Stick]

Michael Ignatieff has pointed out that abortion programs should be included in maternal health programs. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/include-abortion-in-maternal-health-pledge-michael-ignatieff-tells-pm/article1453666/

[Antonia]

And now it gets even more interesting.

[stageleft]

Harper is looking for headlines to help sway the masses who have no idea how bad conditions are for some Canadians - it's a strategy that depends on Canadians either being ignorant or in denial and, more is the great and woeful pity, it will probably work.

[M]

The first application for a CIDA grant under this initiative that mentions family planning, access to contraception, or abortion services will have the PM hiding for cover leaving Bev Oda to explain why family planning and access to contraception have absolutely nothing to do with women's health in the developing world. The conservative base won't stand for it.