What a mess!

There is a "community read" for each of my new jobs. I'm reading Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, a husband and wife team which won the Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on China while both worked for the NYTimes.

While I think the book is a poor choice for a freshman writing class (anthropology or sociology or even public policy are more appropriate placements for their work), I have to share some of their information.

In their chapter, "Family Planning and the 'God Gulf,' " they discuss how W. cut off funds to Marie Stopes International and the other members of a consortium of clinics of which MSI was part because MSI supplied abortion information in China.

Because of the funding reduction, MSI cancelled work among women refugees in Samali and Rwanda and laid off 80 doctors and nurses who were providing prenatal care. Women and their babies died.

This is a part of American foreign policy called the "God Gulf," the beliefs of conservative Christians which have led republican presidents to institute the famous gag rule against abortion counseling, which according to a Ghanian doctor, "results in more unwanted pregnancies, more unsafe abortions, and more deaths of women and girls."

This means that 122 million women can not access contraception. As about 40% of pregnancies are unplanned and unwanted and as half of those unwanted pregnancies end in abortion, these self-described pro-life forces are doing more harm than good.