London Family Planning Summit
Bryan Cones has a post at US Catholic - Catholic for contraceptives: Melinda Gates wants birth control for 120 million poor women. Here's the beginning of his post ...
I wonder if, in 1968 when he signed Humanae Vitae, Paul VI could have guessed the kinds of conversations we'd still be having more than 40 years later--or that Catholics would still be arguing about birth control.
I doubt Montini could have foreseen Melinda Gates--a woman with control of billions in philanthropic resources and priceless credibility in the world of aid to the world's poor--who is now devoting herself entirely to providing medical means of family planning to 120 million poor women. Did I mention she is Catholic?
Gates has been on the defensive--although you would never know it by her self-possessed and graceful demeanor--because her efforts contravene Catholic teaching on birth control. Gates acknowledges in an interview on The Colbert Report that this is so, but she also argues that, in the interest of social justice, women should be free to choose other methods to manage their fertility, an argument she also took to CNN.
Gates' argument, to my mind anyway, is a winning one ....
And here's more about the family planning summit taking place in London - Contraception pledge for 120 million of poorest women ....
The promise was made at the London Family Planning Summit, which was co-hosted by the UK government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by the Microsoft boss and his wife to improve global healthcare and tackle extreme poverty .....
At present 220 million women do not have access to contraception or family planning services. It is estimated that a woman dies from pregnancy-related complications every two minutes. The summit's organisers say the cumulative impact of the pledges by 2020 could be 200,000 fewer maternal deaths, 110 million fewer unintended pregnancies, 50 million fewer abortions, and nearly three million fewer babies dying in the first year of life .......
Some good further reading - A Gates Summit Aims to Fill Family Planning Gap - which mentions the disingenuous attacks on the summit by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and links to a post by Berk Ozler, a World Bank development economist - Is there an 'unmet need' for birth control - as well as this video below ...
I wonder if, in 1968 when he signed Humanae Vitae, Paul VI could have guessed the kinds of conversations we'd still be having more than 40 years later--or that Catholics would still be arguing about birth control.
I doubt Montini could have foreseen Melinda Gates--a woman with control of billions in philanthropic resources and priceless credibility in the world of aid to the world's poor--who is now devoting herself entirely to providing medical means of family planning to 120 million poor women. Did I mention she is Catholic?
Gates has been on the defensive--although you would never know it by her self-possessed and graceful demeanor--because her efforts contravene Catholic teaching on birth control. Gates acknowledges in an interview on The Colbert Report that this is so, but she also argues that, in the interest of social justice, women should be free to choose other methods to manage their fertility, an argument she also took to CNN.
Gates' argument, to my mind anyway, is a winning one ....
And here's more about the family planning summit taking place in London - Contraception pledge for 120 million of poorest women ....
The promise was made at the London Family Planning Summit, which was co-hosted by the UK government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by the Microsoft boss and his wife to improve global healthcare and tackle extreme poverty .....
At present 220 million women do not have access to contraception or family planning services. It is estimated that a woman dies from pregnancy-related complications every two minutes. The summit's organisers say the cumulative impact of the pledges by 2020 could be 200,000 fewer maternal deaths, 110 million fewer unintended pregnancies, 50 million fewer abortions, and nearly three million fewer babies dying in the first year of life .......
Some good further reading - A Gates Summit Aims to Fill Family Planning Gap - which mentions the disingenuous attacks on the summit by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and links to a post by Berk Ozler, a World Bank development economist - Is there an 'unmet need' for birth control - as well as this video below ...
posted by crystal | 3:08 PM
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