SPUC one day conference on Maternal Mortality

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has announced the holding of a conference on Maternal Mortality to be held in London on March 20th 2012. The Conference titled  : "Abortion or Maternal Health: What should we be funding in developing countries?"will be held in Regent Hall, 275 Oxford Street, London W1

Millennium Development Goal 5 pledged to cut global maternal mortality by 75% by 2015, but with that deadline looming hard questions need to be asked about why this goal will not be reached and what changes need to be made to reduce the unacceptably high rates of maternal death in developing countries. This one-day conference will bring together medical experts who work to provide live-saving health care to pregnant women in developing countries and legal specialists with expertise in the legislative context within which aid strategies are promoted.  Maternal mortality is, in the words of SPUC's Fiorella Nash, the Trojan Horse of the Abortion Lobby. By raising this highly-charged subject, the abortion industry seeks to garner more public support for itself and gain an ever increasing share of international aid, all in the name of humanitarian concern. Yet, as this briefing makes clear, talk of maternal mortality from the abortion industry has less to do with genuine help for women than with an agenda which is in fact acutely damaging to women and the unborn.

In conjunction with the announcement of the conference SPUC has issued a briefing package on Maternal Mortality challenging the pro-abortion mantras that constantly demand more and more access to what they call "safe legal abortion", while at the same time ignoring the fact that more abortion means more maternal mortality regardless of whether it is legal or illegal.

USAID rejects proposal to reduce maternal mortality in Kenya

USAID have turned down a Matercare International (MCI) project which would have significantly reduced maternal mortality in the Isiolo area of Kenya. according to Dr. Robert Whalley of MCI. Dr Whalley however is determined to press ahead with his plans. The Local Government District of Isiolo in Kenya has donated 7 acres of prime land for a maternity hospital and MCI has already raised over $600,000 (US) over the past few years. The project has been costed at $5,000,000 (US).

According to Dr. Whalley Mothers in the developing world are experiencing unimaginable suffering due to a scandalous lack of effective care during pregnancy and childbirth, with the consequence that many thousands are dying. The MCI proposal will provide comprehensive care to thousands of women but is being delayed due to lack of funding.

The essence of the plan developed by Dr Whalley is to bring much needed healthcare to women in their own villages but to back this up with the provision of trained personnel and emergency care centres.

The basic five point plan is:

1. Construct a 30 bed birth centre including a 2 bed delivery room, operating room, outpatients, laboratory and pharmacy.
2. Renovate, equip and staff existing parish dispensaries.
3. Provide a maternity waiting home for high risk mothers.
4. Establish mobile ambulance clinics to cover specific districts.
5. Train midwives and traditional birth attendants to provide basic maternity care in the districts.

The World Health Organisation estimates that there are over 500,000 maternal deaths annually, of which 99 per cent occur in developing countries. There is no accurate data to substantiate these numbers, the reason being that most developing countries do not report information on births, deaths, the sex of dead people or the cause of death. However, figures quoted by Dr. Whalley based on his own experience at a mission hospital in Nigeria, where the in-hospital maternal mortality ratio was 1,700per 100,000 live births, illustrates the enormity of the problem and the urgent need for financial aid to deliver the much needed health care and save lives.

Thoughts of an EU reformist

A detailed and disturbing account at Orwell's Picnic of Kathy Sinnot's recent lecture given at the MaterCare conference. She describes the essentially anti-democratic nature of the European Union and the promotion of the culture of death with devastating clarity.

Describing the way the European Court of Justice works, she stated:

Judges slip very easily into law-making and judicial activism and this is particularly true in the European Court of Justice for a particularly interesting reason. Most of our High Courts or Supreme Courts or whatever you call them in your own countries – the job of most of those courts is to uphold your constitutions. But the actual stated job of the European Court of Justice – the EU’s court is to promote the European project. So, it takes whatever document or whatever treatise, and it decides what interpretation at this point in time will best promote the European project; not what do those words truly mean and what do case law tell us about them. And this is a particularly worrying thing in terms, again, of the Lisbon Treaty because for the first time, we had a Charter of Rights included – called the Fundamental Charter of Rights and those rights had very interesting things like ‘Everyone has a right to life.’ But, of course, the only country fighting that statement was Ireland because we wanted to retain our Right to Life – and we knew that a statement like “Everyone has a right to life” – actually did not apply to such things as abortion and euthanasia. It actually meant the opposite and it would mean the opposite because it was the European Court in Luxemburg that would decide what it meant and that was why countries that are very invested in things like abortion – even countries that are invested in policies of euthanasia – had no problem ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and even welcoming this fundamental charter because, in fact, it would reinforce their policy not counter-act it.

Reading this post made me all too aware of the vital work MEPs like Kathy are doing in the European Parliament, against appalling odds. It should be noted that Kathy describes herself as an EU-reformist, not a Eurosceptic. This is, I think, an important clarification to make, as it is quite common for people to assume that anyone who dares question the functioning of the EU is against it per se. Just as a true patriot should regard it as a duty to stand up to unjust laws in his own country, a good European should regard it as a duty to stand up to the injustices currently being carried out in the name of the European project.