In search of a quiet, secluded spot to give birth (who isn’t?), last month actress Angelina Jolie finally settled on the southern African nation of Namibia. Luckily, the Namibian government was more than willing to temporarily overhaul its entire immigration policy in order to meet her needs, prompting one infuriated African blogger to throw up her hands in frustration at the phenomenon now commonly known as Nambrangelina.

Angelina is a tough lady, but admittedly, she wasn’t in search of the true Namibian birth experience: in Namibia, women stand a 1 in 54 lifetime chance of dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth—compared to a 1 in 2,500 chance in the States (though it’s important to note some women’s health disparities in the U.S., like the fact that African-American women face a maternal mortality rate four times higher than white women). Actually, the reproductive health risks in Namibia are pretty tame by African standards—compare it to Nigeria, where women stand a whopping 1 in 18 lifetime chance of death by pregnancy or childbirth.

At any rate, the birth of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt on May 27 does seem a fitting monument to the world of women’s health in which we currently live: where a woman with the right connections can turn an entire country into her own personal maternity ward, while meanwhile, over half a million women still die from largely avoidable complications from pregnancy and childbirth every year, 99 percent of them in developing countries.

One would hope, given these stark inequalities, that rich countries like the United States were doing something to rectify the situation—but I probably don’t have to tell you at this point that Bush administration policies are in fact making things worse. One example: for the past five years, the Bush administration has frozen the annual $34 million U.S. contribution to UNFPA, the world’s largest multilateral provider of reproductive health services. The UNFPA funding freeze, which is a cheap and baseless ploy to curry favor with Bush’s anti-abortion, anti-evidence, and anti-family planning domestic voting base, leaves millions of women in developing countries without access to basic care and support before, during, and after childbirth—not to mention the information and services that would allow them to decide if and when they become pregnant in the first place.

Of course, how can the Bush administration be expected to worry about reproductive health services in developing countries when they’re clearly such a low priority at home? Last I checked, 1 in 5 American women of reproductive age still didn’t have health insurance, and Bush was busy flatlining the federal family planning program with one hand and slashing Medicaid with the other.

Luckily, there’s still hope for American women. Brad and Angelina were kind enough to make a $300,000 contribution “to help other babies” in Namibia, in commemoration of their daughter’s birth. They can certainly afford it: Brad took home $20 million for his role in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” and Angelina rakes in at least $14 million per film, according to the New York Daily News. So if we can just convince the couple to have their next baby in the States, who knows what American women can expect? Start painting your nursery now.