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Ex facte, it seems quite evident there are ways to improve the health and reduce the deaths of women and children, if every country finds initiatives to fund according to a joint plan. But still the solution is not found and the statistics is horrifying. A woman dies in pregnancy or during childbirth every 100 seconds, a thousand children die every hour. Annually about nine million children and about 350,000 pregnant women die from preventable causes. The majority die from pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria, sepsis, gasteroenteritis, AIDs. To make maters worse, every year 70,000 women die from unsafe abortions. About 99 per cent of these women live in developing countries.
According to Alina Haddad’s report, the maternal death rate has decreased in East Asia and Latin America, in some countries it has even decreased as much as by half. However, pregnancy and childbirth complications remain the key cause of women deaths in Africa and South Asia (Haddad). Among the specific causes she names infections, hemorrhage, anemia, high blood pressure, seizures etc. Investigations on the matter make a researcher conclude that the causes are merely the result of inadequacies in health care system and human rights’ violation (Haddad). It is estimated that cost-effective interventions not always solve the problems of the developing counties, and, unfortunately, often not once and for all. That is why The Group of Eight leading countries regularly meet to accelerate the progress on maternal and child health improvement as well as see to it that the current projects meet the needs of women in developing countries and the Millennium Development Goals concerning maternal health (Dunn & McKeegan). They worked out Muskoka Initiative that includes an accountability mechanism ensuring that the G8 follows through on its commitments. In other words, in June 2010 the nations of the G8 with Canadian greatest contribution to the initiative committed to take a coordinated action and improve the lives of children and their mothers in accordance with the Muskoka Initiative. It helps to focus global attention on the maternal issues and has already attracted 2,3 billion dollars from non-G8 nations.
G8 nations will commit about 5 billion dollars to the Muskoka Initiative over the next five years with more than a billion coming from Canada alone. Its aim lies in reducing the number of deaths of healthy mothers, newborns and children under five. In the next five years the Muskoka Initiative will mobilize better support and help in preventing the deaths of more than a billion children, more than 60,000 mothers and provide easier access to family planning and contraception. The initiative is worked out due to the direct assistance of the Canadian International Development Agency that promotes sustainability of gathered data, building cost-effective interventions, supporting national health policies, improving accountability and strengthening the monitoring of results.
According to “Canada’s Commitment to Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Worldwide” the Muskoka Initiative includes the following components: antenatal, postpartum care, attended childbirth, voluntary family planning, HIV transmission prevention, immunization, health education etc. It is legally called a huge step towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals, the fourth and fifth in particular, as they deal with child mortality reduction and maternal health improvement.
CIDA emphasizes that its priorities are build on the experience learned and best practices shaped over the years that concern health improvement in the least developed countries of the world, preventing and controlling the diseases, improving child health and nutrition as well as reducing mortality. CIDA concentrates its actions mainly on the aspects including disease control and obstetric, neonatal care that it considers the most urgent for the nations living in the developing countries. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already pledged more than a billion dollars for maternal health and in his speech he called it the “flagship initiative” for the summit of the year 2010, so Canada led the financial support of the developing countries with a disproportionate contribution (Harper). As the leader of the summit, Harper urged the leaders of the G8 to pay attention to the issue and accentuating the gained achievements and thanked the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and New Zealand. Harper called for joining the initiative saying that “together we are committed to moving the world towards a day when women in developing countries will not die, or suffer disabilities from pregnancy or childbirth” (Harper).
Generally the members approved of the initiative, Melinda French Gates from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation called Canada’s “initiative the most ambitious effort on behalf of women’s and children’s health in history” (Gates). In Toronto Harper announced that the G20 has a lot to do to fully entrench the global recovery and encourages political leaders to contribute to the plan that will include child immunization, better access to education, clean water and nutrition supply, trained professionals hiring and family planning. The UN approved of Harper’s announcement and expressed hope that other countries would follow the Canadian example to ensure developed countries deliver their promises.
However, the Canadian governmental initiative is controversial and according to the leading experts including Dr. Bennett, Canada considerably politicized the maternal health initiative making it rather difficult for other G8 members to support(Bennett). The point where controversy and criticism mainly arise is Canadian strict non-abortion policy for the developing countries. According to Keith Martin, the decision is undemocratic and abuses the fundamental rights and freedoms. Martin emphasizes that Harper’s actions could result in deaths as there is no evidence that not funding abortions stops women from unsafe ones, as in developing countries a great amount of women are rape victims, or victims of incest, forced marriages (Martin). Martin reasonably considers Harper should leave the ideology and politics out of maternal health, otherwise the countries will never reach a consensus. Harper in his turn states that Canada is not going to take part in the actions on maternal health improvement if the plan includes abortions funding, though they are along with contraception available in his country and legally funded there. The critics claim that Harper imposes on personal beliefs of the women living in developing countries. This way the conservative Canadian government isolates the country from the rest of the developed world and the Conservatives cut off funding to the programs that do not meet their requirements concerning their non-abortion policy, thereby the they are re-opening the abortion debate.
According to Vancouver Sun, Martin offers a plan of actions for five years that may make Harper “step down from his moral high horse without enraging his anti-abortion constituency”. The practical plan based on creating a global fund of 15 billion dollars over the next five years, establishing partnership with organizations that have reliable logistical systems, having each G8 country take part in one aspect of the program, distributing their responsibilities. The US announced its position on the matter, as Hillary Clinton supported the health initiative that gave legal access to safe abortion. Cecile Richards, president of US Planned Parenthood Federation considers the initiative definitely to be a step forward, hence, she sees no effective maternal health care system improvement without well-coordinated reproductive health care including “access to safe and legal abortions” (Richards). Opposition parties even accused Harper who ambiguously noticed that they were not against options including contraception, the critics focused on the point that he was deliberately “muddying the waters” of his position on maternal health in developing countries for a long time. The opposition claime that the situation can create division within the G8, but International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda denies it, as considers they all support Canada’s initiative. Under any circumstances Oda refuses to accept abortion as a measure in family planning.