The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum
=> commentary on the above article from the same journal
| commentary on the above article from the same journal |
|
Posted by
Habibi
(Guest)
- Tuesday, August 10 2004, 0:08:09 (CEST) from -  Windows XP -  Internet ExplorerWebsite: Website title: |
The Lancet Volume 363, Issue 9406 , 31 January 2004, Pages 401-402 Correspondence Effect of US policies on women's health worldwide Amy E Pollack , Rachael N Pine and Christina Wypijewska EngenderHealth, New York, NY, USA Available online 30 January 2004. Sir—In your Nov 8 Editorial[1] addressing the US abortion divide, you call on US policymakers to stop waging "war over abortion" and instead "provide comprehensive contraceptive services to the poor", asserting that "it would do more to reduce abortion than passing bans". The same suggestion holds for the White House itself, which 3 years ago reimposed the "global gag rule" banning abortion counselling and referral in US-subsidised non-governmental family planning clinics around the world. But, in the developing world, unlike in the USA, such bans do more than restrict access to abortion services. Indeed, a new report, Access Denied: U.S. Restrictions on International Family Planning (http://www.globalgagrule.org, accessed Dec 22, 2003) shows that the global gag rule jeopardises the health of women and their families by impeding access to a wide array of life-affecting reproductive health services. Aimed at abortion, the gag rule eliminates access to family planning, AIDS-related services, and maternal care. The report, prepared by a coalition of organisations called the Global Gag Rule Impact Project, was the result of research in Ethiopia, Kenya, Romania, and Zambia from July, 2002, to May, 2003. Research teams visited health facilities and interviewed health providers, policymakers, programme managers, and donors. The resulting case studies document that the gag rule reduces access to health services and contraception in each of the four countries investigated. In Kenya, for example, where 24% of married women lack access to family planning and 15% of all adults are infected with HIV/AIDS, the gag rule has had devastating effects. Kenya's two most prominent family planning non-governmental organisations (NGOs) closed five of their well established clinics, eliminating access to family planning, prenatal and postnatal obstetric care, well-baby care, cervical cancer screening, immunisations, and HIV/AIDS prevention services, including counselling and testing. Four of these clinics served nearly 24000 clients each year and another was the only source of health care for a community of 300000 people. In Ethiopia, where there are 1800 maternal deaths per 100000 deliveries and just 8% of women use contraceptives, two NGOs have lost access to US-donated contraceptives, including male and female condoms. At the same time, evidence is replete, worldwide, that greater access to contraceptives reduces reliance on abortion. An analysis of 11 countries[2] shows that increased contraceptive use and effectiveness leads to reduced abortion rates when other factors—such as fertility—are held constant. In an analysis of trends in Kazakhstan, for example, abortion decreased by 50% as contraceptive prevalence increased the same amount during the 1990s. [3] In Turkey, where the abortion rate declined from a peak of 45 abortions per 1000 married women in 1988 to 25 per 1000 in 1998, an increased use of modern methods of contraception accounted for 87% of the decline in abortion. [4] A study in Bangladesh found that lower abortion rates resulted from access to higher-quality family planning services. [5] These findings underscore how misplaced and heavy-handed such bans are, especially in the context of the realities of medical care in the poorest regions of the world. While US policymakers wage an ideological war in the ether, the restrictions imposed on international family planning erode the services that can prevent abortion on the ground. Engender Health was a partner in the Global Gag Rule Impact Project and a contributor to the development of the report Access Denied:US Restrictions on International Family Planning. References 1. TheLancet, USA continues war over abortion. Lancet 362 (2003), p. 1509. 2. C Marston and J. Cleland, Relationships between contraception and abortion: a review of the evidence. Int Fam Plan Persp 29 (2003), pp. 6–13. 3. Westoff CF. The substitution of contraception for abortion in Kazakhstan in the 1990s. Calverton, MD: Macro International, 2000, No 1. 4. P Senlet, SL Curtis, J Mathis and H. Raggers, The role of changes in contraceptive use in the decline of induced abortion in Turkey. Stud Fam Plan 32 (2001), pp. 41–52. 5. M Rahman, J DaVanzo and A. Razzaque, Do better family planning services reduce abortion in Bangladesh?. Lancet 358 (2001), pp. 1051–1056. --------------------- |
The full topic:
|
|
Content-length: 5283 Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, applicatio... Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate Accept-language: en-us Cache-control: no-cache Connection: Keep-Alive Cookie: *hidded* Host: www.insideassyria.com Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf2/rkvsf_core.php?yet_one_more_article_about_abortion-BQUf.AEGR.REPLY User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) |
Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9