According to a report by Gonzalo Ortiz of InterPress News Service (IPS), Ecuador has achieved a steep decline in maternal deaths and illness through a model program “centered on the mother’s needs and not those of the doctor or midwife.”
The proportion of abortion patients who were poor increased by almost 60 percent between 2000 and 2008, according to a new report by the Guttmacher Institute.
High rates of youth poverty precede high rates of teenage childbearing. Teens residing in communities with high rates of poverty, welfare use, and single-mother households are at higher risk for early pregnancy.
Last week, Senate Democrats proposed extending unemployment insurance by 14 weeks — with an extra six weeks for states with unemployment above 8.5 percent — only to have Republicans block the measure on the chamber floor.
Sex happens: 125 million times each and every day. So how is it that in the 21st century this precious element of human existence is still taboo? Strengthening sexual and reproductive health and rights must become a global priority. Our future depends on it.
Latina teens give birth at a rate more than twice that of white teens. Many of the policies intended to address this are misguided and have been largely ineffective. We need a dramatically different approach.
Census data from 2008 show an increase in the number of women who have lost income, lost private coverage and are falling into poverty. The increase in the number of women without coverage stems from the continued erosion of private insurance –- primarily through the loss of job-based coverage–even before the worst of the economic crisis hit.
Kristof and WuDunn persuasively argue that fighting for women’s equality around the world, especially in developing countries, is the moral issue of our time.
Kristof and WuDunn offer an important message. But we have our own invisibles: mostly women of color who face staggering obstacles to health care and remain economically disadvantaged.
We, the people of the developing world, complain about unfair and inaccurate reporting by Western journalists because we know how differently stories might have turned out if they had consulted the experts among us.
