Neither Damo nor Leaning have the first clue what they are talking about. The funding was not equal, and the policy cost women's lives. (it also led to thousands more abortions) I know women's lives are worthless to right wing men, and we all must worship the fertilized egg, but this doesnt' change the fact that you both are talking a bunch of shit.
"On Friday evening, a time favored by officials trying to avoid attention, President Barack Obama issued a statement reversing one of the most damaging policies ever visited on developing nations by Republican administrations. This was the "global gag rule," which forbade US government support for any organization that in any way fostered, provided or even advised women about abortion. It was a policy foisted on an unsuspecting world by the Reagan administration at, of all events, a United Nations conference on women and development held in Mexico City in 1984.
What became known as the "Mexico City policy" was always a political football. It was rescinded in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, then reimposed in 2001 by George W. Bush, who also proceeded to deal a second harsh blow to the world's poorest families by cutting off American assistance to the United Nations Population Fund, the largest global provider of family planning assistance. The reason, or excuse--rejected by the administration's own internal report--was that the Population Fund was linked to forced abortion practices in China. The fund has lost about $250 million in American aid since 2002.
Millions of women and their families were the direct victims of these shortsighted steps, taken in the name of people who called themselves "pro-family," but appeared to be woefully ignorant of the harm they caused in homes around the world. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, based in London, estimates that in the last eight years alone as much as $100 million in US aid was lost to its affiliates in 100 countries because of their refusal to accept an abortion ban. The federation estimates this lost aid could have prevented 36 million unintended pregnancies and 15 million abortions, often acts of desperation. More than 80,000 women and more than 2.5 million children might not have died.
Not surprisingly, the rate of unsafe abortions is highest in the poorest countries, where at least 200 million women cannot get contraceptives. The World Health Organization, which supports safe abortion as a tool of last resort, estimates that of 45 million abortions globally every year, 19 million take place under unsafe conditions, causing at least 68,000 deaths. Forty percent of those most dangerous abortions involve teens and women between the ages of 15 and 24. A woman in the developing world--primarily in Africa and parts of Asia--is at least 100 times more likely to die of a botched abortion than a woman in the industrial North.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090209/crossette/print
"On Friday evening, a time favored by officials trying to avoid attention, President Barack Obama issued a statement reversing one of the most damaging policies ever visited on developing nations by Republican administrations. This was the "global gag rule," which forbade US government support for any organization that in any way fostered, provided or even advised women about abortion. It was a policy foisted on an unsuspecting world by the Reagan administration at, of all events, a United Nations conference on women and development held in Mexico City in 1984.
What became known as the "Mexico City policy" was always a political football. It was rescinded in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, then reimposed in 2001 by George W. Bush, who also proceeded to deal a second harsh blow to the world's poorest families by cutting off American assistance to the United Nations Population Fund, the largest global provider of family planning assistance. The reason, or excuse--rejected by the administration's own internal report--was that the Population Fund was linked to forced abortion practices in China. The fund has lost about $250 million in American aid since 2002.
Millions of women and their families were the direct victims of these shortsighted steps, taken in the name of people who called themselves "pro-family," but appeared to be woefully ignorant of the harm they caused in homes around the world. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, based in London, estimates that in the last eight years alone as much as $100 million in US aid was lost to its affiliates in 100 countries because of their refusal to accept an abortion ban. The federation estimates this lost aid could have prevented 36 million unintended pregnancies and 15 million abortions, often acts of desperation. More than 80,000 women and more than 2.5 million children might not have died.
Not surprisingly, the rate of unsafe abortions is highest in the poorest countries, where at least 200 million women cannot get contraceptives. The World Health Organization, which supports safe abortion as a tool of last resort, estimates that of 45 million abortions globally every year, 19 million take place under unsafe conditions, causing at least 68,000 deaths. Forty percent of those most dangerous abortions involve teens and women between the ages of 15 and 24. A woman in the developing world--primarily in Africa and parts of Asia--is at least 100 times more likely to die of a botched abortion than a woman in the industrial North.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090209/crossette/print
