June 9, 2010

Bill & Melinda Gates Pledge $1.5 Million to Child and Maternal Health

From the NPR Health Blog:

Gates said that in a lot of the communities she's visited, women are very vocal about wanting access to birth control.

She doesn't think there is as much of a cultural obstacle as it might seem to some Americans.

"I actually think the biggest barrier is sometimes the American public," she said. "The way we think about reproductive rights is pretty different than the European women do or the women I meet in Africa and even the governments in Africa."

"We make it a big debate, and it really shouldn't be," she said. (Click here for Gates on birth control in her own words.)


We had a discussion about abortion in our "social medicine" class a few months ago and a few things that came up:
- when you're a doctor will you refuse to perform abortions
- is it okay to make a distinction between what you would do and what you allow of your patients
- does the debate really come down to when you believe life begins, and if it does, where is the space for a good debate?


Check out the whole article (and Melinda Gates on Birth Control) here.

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To make you think:

"No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg (to get free)."
-Frederica Mathewes-Green

(who is interestingly, decidedly anti-choice; check out her views on her website)

More Pro-Choice Quotes here

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