Akweley & Akwokwo in Teshie, Ghana

"The Bush administration this month is quietly cutting off birth control supplies to some of the world’s poorest women in Africa." — Nicholas K. Kristoff’s Can This Be Pro-Life?

The latest bout of reproductive-health madness came in the last couple of weeks when the U.S. Agency for International Development ordered six African countries to ensure that no U.S.-financed condoms, birth control pills, I.U.D.’s or other contraceptives are furnished to Marie Stopes International, a British-based aid group that operates clinics in poor countries.
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According to Jared Ferrie in The National’s Conservative US Policies Hit Health Aid in Africa

It would not be the first time the White House has targeted international non-governmental organisations with pro-choice leanings. On Jan 22 2001 – two days after his inauguration – the US president banned funding for international family planning groups that fight for the availability of abortion.“It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion, either here or abroad,” Mr Bush wrote at the time in a memorandum to the head of USAID.The law became known as the “global gag rule”, but it was repealed last year in a US Senate ruling that was widely seen as a blow to Mr Bush’s foreign aid objectives.
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Back to Kristoff:

Retrograde decisions on reproductive health are reached in conference rooms in Washington, but I’ve seen how they play out in African villages. A young woman lies in a hut, bleeding to death or swollen by infection, as untrained midwives offer her water or herbs. Her husband and children wait anxiously outside the hut, their faces frozen and perspiring as her groans weaken.

When she dies, her body is bundled in an old blanket and buried in a shallow hole, with brush piled on top to keep wild animals away. Her children sob and shriek and in the ensuing months they often endure neglect and are far more likely to die of hunger or disease.

In some parts of Africa, a woman now has a 1-in-10 risk of dying in childbirth. The idea that U.S. policy may increase that toll is infuriating.

please read Kristoff’s op-ed, he says it so much better than I ever could.

[editor's note: originally posted at 10:53 FDL time]