Interesting that the views of the UK & US Governments diverge so widely on this subject.

Britain comes to aid of UN family planning agency snubbed by Bush

Sarah Boseley, health editor
Friday March 5, 2004
The Guardian

The British government will today make plain its disapproval of the US administration's anti-abortion stance by announcing new money for the UN family planning agency, which had its budget slashed on the day George Bush came to power.

The Department for International Development is increasing its funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation from £4.5m to £6m a year.

Gareth Thomas, parliamentary under secretary of state, said the money was in recognition of "the difficulties that our friends in America have caused for those who operate in this area".

He added: "The IPPF has been badly affected. We are keen to step up and help. We are clear that we need to do more on providing access to safe abortion services and to chronicle the level of unsafe abortions."

The IPPF has undertaken to provide DFID with a report on access to services and the scale of unsafe abortion around the world.

The need for safe, legal services to cut the numbers of women dying and suffering harm through backstreet abortions is an issue on which there is a rare divergence of views between the UK and the US.

Steven Sinding, director general of the IPPF, said yesterday he was profoundly grateful for British support. "It helps enormously. It is a great morale booster, in addition to the value of the money."

The IPPF supports national family planning services in 150 countries, including abortion services where those are legal. It was the Reagan administration which introduced what has been alternatively called the Mexico City policy and the Global Gag rule - that no US funds would go to any organisation which supports abortion.

Bill Clinton's first act as president was to revoke it, and George W Bush's first act was to reimpose it. John Kerry, the Democrat hopeful, has said he will revoke it on his first day in office if he is elected.

The IPPF has lost $15m a year as a result, some of which has since been made up by the EU, Sweden and Switzerland. It has meant that some basic family planning clinics in poor countries have had to close. Women are denied contraceptive help and advice, which the IPPF believes will lead to an increase in women risking their lives at the hands of back street abortionists.

"We believe unsafe abortions will have gone up," said Mr Sinding. "These cuts are reducing the access particularly of poor women to family planning services and will result in increased unsafe abortions."

DFID is also today announcing a £3m donation to the World Health Organisation's campaign to get three million people in the developing world on Aids drugs by 2005, in an attempt to stop the escalation of the epidemic and save lives.

It makes the UK one of the world's first donors to the ambitious campaign which the UN secretary general's special envoy on HIV/Aids, Stephen Lewis, this week called "a herculean effort... to introduce hope where there was only despair".

He called for more governments to put in money towards the $200m it is estimated will be needed.

Mr Thomas said: "The DFID money will not be spent directly on drugs but will support the hard-pressed healthcare staff of poor countries. It will help to provide a whole series of training packages."

The WHO is aiming to train 100,000 health providers - sometimes referred to as barefoot doctors although the level of expertise will be far lower than that - to assess those with HIV and determine whether they need to go on the drugs immediately, and then to monitor their progress.

Not that I disagree with planned parenthood, but I do want to point out that arguing "back alley" aboritions indicate a need for cleaner safer places for abortion is a little bit like arguing crack houses are reason to legalize crack and have a safe place to do it. Either the thing is moral and legal, or it is not.

Here's the real thing with US funding planned parenthood -- making it legal to get an abortion is different that procuring it for someone. Domestically, our government does not pay for abortions. In fact, for a woman on welfare, our government would rather pay the $5,000+ costs of child birth than pay $400 for an abortion. I think that's wasting my tax money, but the other side of this debate thinks you should never spend tax dollars to kill fetuses, however legal it may be to do so.

Regardless, one thing is certain: if we don't spend for something domestically based on ethical concerns, it certainly isn't fair for us to go spend money on that thing in another country. Which is why the funding was pulled.

I'm all for Planned Parenthood. They do good work. I'm not even touching on abortion, either. Young people need somewhere they can go for honest, accurate information on sex, STDs, and birth control, and the means to acquire said birth control to avoid said STDs.

<font color = lightgreen>Actually, it is because back-alley abortions exist that there should be increased funding for any organization such as Planned Parenthood; it is more cost effective to have a woman in a clean and safe clinic than to cover the ER and hospital stay that would most likely be needed after visiting the back alley.
I will quickly touch on your mention of crack houses and legalizing crack (or other drugs). Since the government is all about money, legalizing drugs and having the government be in charge of importation and distribution would not only result in a dramatic drop in the crime rate but would also be quite the economic windfall. A study of Prohibition and the War on Drugs shows this to be the most logical and profitable solution.</font>

<font color = lightgreen>And here I thought the funding was pulled because giving money to Planned Parenthood--which just a front for those sinful abortion clinics, as every good citizen knows--looks bad in an election year. Oh, wait--was that cynical? [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] </font>

And one which is put into practise in the Netherlands with so called soft drugs. The system definitely works, the only problems concern the exportation of those drugs to countries in which the laws are a lot stricter.

(sorry for going off-topic, though)

[ 03-06-2004, 03:12 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]