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TechnoratiThe Global War on Sex Education
In the US and abroad, the Bush administration has severely restricted women's access to contraception
If Barack Obama's tour of Europe and the Middle East does anything, it will give the senator from Illinois a taste of just how desperate the world beyond US borders is for the very brand of change he's advocated these many months. Sure there are the obvious points: the promise to pull out of Iraq, the reinvigoration of a kind of outwardly focused global neo-liberalism and engagement with allies and foes alike on everything from climate change to countering terror. But this month's World Population Day pointed to another reason the Bushies can't leave office fast enough.
According to a new World Bank report, despite a worldwide increase in access to contraception and contraceptive technologies, some 51 million unintended pregnancies take place every year in the developing world, and an additional 25 million pregnancies are gestated by women who use faulty contraception or don't understand the methods they're using.
Of that number, according to the World Bank, some 68,000 women die from botched or unsafe abortions each year, and some 5.1 million are left permanently disabled by them. "Giving women access to modern contraception and family planning also helps to boost economic growth while reducing high birth rates so strongly linked with endemic poverty, poor education and high numbers of maternal and infant deaths," Joy Phumaphi, the World Bank's vice-president for human development, and a former health minister in Botswana, said in a statement.
How does that connect to the Bush administration? Simple. Since the moment he stepped into office, Bush's commitment to the foolish "abstinence only" training both domestically and internationally has been coupled with a slavish devotion to the restrictive, ghoulish, "global gag rule", introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1984, that cut off funding for any organisation that used USAID funds to even touch the word "abortion". That meant an organisation couldn't counsel a woman on abortion as an option, even if it received money from an entirely separate funding source to do so. Given that the 1973 Helms Amendment already banned US funds from paying for overseas abortions, Reagan's policy gagged healthcare providers and gave them a stark choice: lose crucial American funding (from the creation of USAID in 1965 to 1984, some 40% of all foreign funding to population control-oriented organisations globally came from the US), or severely limit the way they talked about reproductive choices.
Bill Clinton repealed the policy, but Bush reinstated it the moment he arrived in Washington, in January 2001. Then, in August 2003, he tried to deepen its impact, extending the ban from USAID to the entire state department, pushing to ban all employees at state from even discussing the consequences of abortion. Several reports issued at the time illustrated just how devastating Bush's policy had become. By 2002 USAID had ended shipments of contraceptives to 16 developing nations in Africa and Asia as a direct consequence of the gag rule.
Instead of ending abortions, the global gag rule pushed women into back alleys and undermined, even closed, organisations that would have counselled women on how not to get pregnant in the first place. By diminishing access to contraception, it was actually laying the groundwork for unsafe abortions. The global gag rule didn't just gag healthcare providers about abortion. It gagged them on contraception and education. Since 2002, the Bush administration has also withheld funding - to the tune of $39.7m - from the United Nations Population Fund, claiming - despite evidence to the contrary - that UNFPA is connected to forced abortions in China. The shortfall from the US has also helped undermine the spread of contraception and education around the world, particularly in Africa.
"Hundreds of women are dying every day in poor countries from botched abortions," says Barbara Crane, executive vice-president of the North Carolina-based reproductive rights organisation IPAS, who wrote me by email last week. "By repeatedly cutting the budget for international family planning and putting in place the global gag rule, the supposedly 'pro-life' Bush administration ignores this tragic reality - and without doubt causes more unsafe abortions, posing high costs to women, their families and society at large. It is ironic that the same groups that oppose abortion rarely step up and support better access to contraception."
The Bush administration has time and again put American women's lives second to a religiously inspired relationship to women and reproductive health. Take their latest attempt to restrict American women's access to contraception and the kind of pre-emptive contraceptive measures that pro-life forces should love. In this latest salvo, the US department of health and human services would allow any healthcare provider the right to refuse to treat a woman, and defines "abortion" in such a broad manner as to restrict access to IUDs, the morning after pill, and some birth control pills. This affects any entity - from public and private hospitals to pharmacies - that receives public funding from HHS, explains Jill Morrison, senior counsel at the National Women's Law Centre. "Under the guise of simply interpreting current law," Morrison explained, if this HHS proposal goes through it would "completely expand the federal abortion refusal laws to include some of the most commonly used forms of contraception." Morrison said it was fair to call this a "domestic gag rule".
The Bush administration's relationship to sex and reproduction has been consistently abysmal, from their utterly failed effort to promote abstinence only among teenagers to its unique ability to hire militantly anti-contraception "experts" like Susan Orr, a veteran of the religious Family Research Council, who was named acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in October of last year (and stepped down, quietly, in May). Orr was previously known for championing a measure that would strip funding for birth control for federal workers, saying she was "quite pleased because fertility is not a disease. It's not a medical necessity that you have it" and earlier calling contraception part of a "culture of death".
The Bush administration's notion of contraception and sex education has been consistently - maddeningly - oxymoronic. Abortion rates are lowest in countries where women have access to education, especially education on contraception. So while we in the US hold our collective breath, waiting out these last few months of Bush's efforts to restrict our freedoms, globally women are literally dying for him to leave.
Sarah Wildman is a senior correspondent for the American Prospect and a contributor to the New York Times.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
20 Comments so far
Show AllI think Bush has went further than any other President, he vouched for the COC at the ECOSOC, they once had magazine articles urging fathers to have sex with their sons. It is still a pedophile organization. It is analogous to NAMBLA. What went wreong there? Did somebody mix up an acronym?
http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/gl/
That's their own account. They're one of the worlds oldest pro-pedophile organizations. Andriesse, P., "Ga eens met uw zoon naar bed" (Try going to bed with your son). In: Seq, Vol. 1, No. 8, 1969, pages 23-27.
It is ALL about religion...these days religion is PROFIT in so many ways, money and power and lots more... while the FAITH that would deal humanely with all of this disappears under a whole stinking pile of GAWD FEERING (usually Republican/Conservative) FAT ASS holier than thou cruel and ignorant despots...basically Georgie Dubya without as much polish and Edooo-cashun...
I can't believe that quite a few of us on the left don't understand what the Reich have learned a while ago, 3rd party candidates don't stand a chance in this country and only serves to drain votes away. That's just the way things are in this country. The Reich has been using that foolish notion against us with good reason - we keep falling for it. In fact, they have funded left inclined 3rd party candidates like Nader. Reality sucks, doesn't it.
Thumbs up Pissant Nobody!
Good analysis, Doll.
Too bad the neocons look at these women as inevitable collateral damage.
I did the math.
About 2 women in a thousand are disabled by unsafe abortions world wide every year. And about 2 women in every 100,000 die from them. Feel free to check my math. Only women of child bearing age can be counted.
Its not just in america that religios obsesed poiticians refuse to supply appropriate contraceptives, education and easy to get safe abortions to all people especcially women.
Krudd (Kevin Rudd Australias prome minister) has admitted that he is pro abortion and contraception but refuses to make either more free available to Australian women because he's afraid to loose votes from religious parties.
So this is another great example of why all countries need a religous free state for the good of all its citizens.
Obama will be much better than McCain in this policy area. McCain will continue Bush's exact same policies toward contraception, etc. Nader might get as much as 1/10 of one percent of the vote, so I wouldn't bet on him winning the election. If you want to stop the war on sex education and contraception, support Obama.
The urgency for slower population growth has never been higher. When oil production drops sharply in the coming decade, so will worldwide agricultural production, which depends so much on fossil fuels. Millions of additional mouths to feed, from unwanted births, will end up being millions more starving to death.
I live on the San Francisco Peninsula, and we have a contingent of pathetics who routinely come to my local PP and parade back and forth with their rosaries, and generally try to interfere with the patients.
Their leader is a nutcase who has his truck plastered with huge signs and graphic pictures. Not only that, he has similar posters with concrete bases all up and down both sides of the street. A couple years ago, he cut his wife to the tune of twenty-odd stitches during an arguement (unfortunately, she later dropped the charges). It turns out that the reason he can afford to be there all the time is because he made a small fortune in the liquor business. He sees no conflct, though.
A decade ago, I began counter-protesting with signs saying that family planning and abortion rights are good, and encouraging support for Planned Parenthood. Of course, they refuse to answer a simple question about whether they ever had premarital sex, masturbated, or used birth control (it turns out that they are also against sex education, masturbation, and birth control, but that is not on their posters...). I might have given up, except for the 5:1 thumbs up I get compared to them, and the occasional encouraging words from the clinic director. It is not so good, though, that I am alone 99.9% of the time, against a swarm of these fanatics, including occasional priests and monks. What would really be nice is to see others out there, especially organized labor, to run these superstitious pipsqueaks back into their closets.
Sadly, many of the women make their choice based largely on their lack of income. How tragic is that? Clearly, legalizing abortion is not the whole answer to the pains of humanity, but is a stopgap measure to allow more fredom to women. In a world without such overwhelming ignorance and insecurity, I genuinely believe that there would be far smaller incidence of abortion, but that is someday - not today. I'm sure we all agree that abortion is tragic and scarring, but it must never again become illegal.
"if every generation is smarter than the next".....this is not about intellectual intelligence, but rather emotional intelligence. men have arguably been "smart" enough to see women as equal partners in creation for thousands of years. when we, as men, can fully own our feminine nature there will no longer be any question about women having the freedom to do as they please with their bodies.
still, women will need, even more than is already the case, to own their masculine nature and stop giving away their power to men, particularly in marriage or committed relationships. obviously, this will be harder in societies that have grown used to perversities such as forced marriage, coerced prostitution or genital mutilation. one can only hope that one day the likes of these aberrations will vanish from the face of the earth.
I seriously doubt that any politician today would have the courage to tackle the central issues of contraception and overpopulation, never mind abortion, and take on the conservative churches that are behind the problem.
If every generation is smarter than the next, there is still hope these issues will be addressed in the future before nature does.
I feel very, very angry, as I read this.
It's my personal opinion that banning birth control is a tool, whether intentional or not, that perpetuates a patriarchal society and sexism.
"Orr was previously known for championing a measure that would strip funding for birth control for federal workers, saying she was "quite pleased because fertility is not a disease. It's not a medical necessity that you have it" and earlier calling contraception part of a "culture of death"."
It is disgusting that women would actually advocate measures that weaken them. Fertility isn't a disease. But women ARE forced into positions where they can't choose to have a baby or not. We have enough unwanted children.
Birth control is a much better tool to decrease the human population and its burden on nature than the right-wing sector's inhumane slaughter for profit.
Stupidity breeds ignorance and misery; Dubya has never claimed to be smart; just capable of ruining life for everyone. Women and their bodies are just fodder for the old boys' club and its war on women in general. I am beginning to believe that all this religion is responsible for all the ills of the world; the denigrading of women and often men, is just part of the old boy's idea of holding onto power. It is a shame that they refuse to see how destructive and painful these attitudes and policies can be; but then again, it isn't their life, so why would they care? Women and children have been used as sacrifices for all sorts of religions over the centuries; this is just another form of torture and disrespect.
Making contraception widely available is one part of Earth Policy director Lester Brown's recommendation for turning things around in his remarkable book Plan B.3.0 He makes a compelling case. And it's not driven by elitist desires to keep the planet nice for the chosen few but part of a concept of poverty reduction aimed at stabilizing worldwide decent into chaos.
It's available free on their website: http://earthpolicy.org
Daniel,
How's it going?
Of Course Obama would be "better" than McCain on this issue. Just like B Clinton Was "better" than Reagan/Bush.
But that doesn't automatically make him worth voting for. I made all of my third party points in our back-and-forth last week. And I stand by that.
Obama is clearly not going to make a dramatic change in the war (in fact, he is calling for INCREASING the number of soldiers enlisted in the army). He has made provocative staements about Iran. He wants more soldiers in Afghanistan. He has shown his willingness to shred the 4th amendment. His stance on contraceptives doesn't change all of that.
Will he be "better" than McCain overall? Maybe. Okay, I'll give you probably. But better than what?!? McCain will be attrocious. So why do we want to settle for "better then attrocious?"
If we start to support a third candidate in 2008, hopefully by 2012 they'll be enough momentum to elect someone worthwhile, and we can end the "lesser evil" argument.
Peace,
MariusP
Ok DD
In this one I do agree with you.
hemp4victory,
Of course Obama is "courting" the very same evangelicals.
They vote, you know. And there are a LOT of them. But he's not promising them bad policy. McCain is. There is a big difference.
Daniel David does not want you to know that Obama went out of his way to court the very same "evangelicals" who have no interest in dealing with the risks associated with unintended pregnancies let alone the very fact that these risks often force women into survival vs. death for one or both. As long as Obama courts evangelies who hate women trying to survive even if that means safe abortion, there's no reason to expect that he'll be any different from Mccain once in office.
This author and those who sympathize with her views are not gonna like McCain any better. In fact, they're gonna like continuation of these policies even less as they come to realize they are continued by a hypocritical womanizer who intends to do so ONLY because the likes of Dobson and the mega-church preacher supporters were his only chance in thunder to get elected at all.
If the Obama bashers can't even get on board for THIS cause, the whole dang bunch of them are worse than worthless. We do not need more abortions. We need them PREVENTED. That is what education and both "before" and "after" contraception are about.
If I was married to a cutie like Laura Bush, she would have been on the pill or we would have had 6 kids.
Dubya you ol' hypocrite!
Seriously, the Reagan - Bush administration religious based strings on aid were / are ridiculous. Can they be challenged in court?