One Post Read-One Mother Dead

By the time you finish reading this post, one woman will have died due to conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth. Around the world, one woman dies every 90 seconds in pregnancy or childbirth-that’s more than 350,000 women every year.   And here in the United States, more than two women die every day.

These deaths are a human rights violation.  Why?  Because women are not dying of diseases that doctors cannot cure, but because societies have yet to decide that their lives are worth saving.

As part of our celebration of International Women’s Day, we recognize the women all around the world who die while trying to give life.

In the United States, women have a higher risk of dying of pregnancy-related complications than women in 49 other countries, including Kuwait, Bulgaria, and South Korea. In addition, African American women are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women. Amnesty International found that most of these deaths could have been prevented with access to good quality health care.

Amnesty found that our health care system has many flaws that contribute to the number of maternal deaths including; discrimination, bureaucratic and language barriers to care and lack of information about maternal care and family planning options.

In the last Congress, Representative Roybal Allard introduced the MOMS for the 21st Century Act to expand access to quality maternal health care and remove barriers to care.  Unfortunately, Congress adjourned before they could vote on this crucial piece of legislation. In the new Congress, we’ve been working hard to ensure that this bill is reintroduced and that our elected representatives do not forget about our nation’s maternal health crisis.

We are thrilled to share with all of our members and activists the recent introduction of H.R. 894, the “Maternal Health Accountability Act of 2011” by long time advocate and champion Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-MI)! We now need your help to ensure that H.R. 894 becomes law – take action and ask your Representative to cosponsor H.R. 894 now!

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, we need to act now so that this can be a day of celebration for everyone.  In the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day, Amnesty will be sponsoring events all around the country to spotlight the women who die everyday from complications in pregnancy and child birth. Help us fight for maternal health by getting involved with one of our events or hosting your own!

Heba Dafashy contributed to this post

AIUSA welcomes a lively and courteous discussion that follow our Community Guidelines. Comments are not pre-screened before they post but AIUSA reserves the right to remove any comments violating our guidelines.

16 thoughts on “One Post Read-One Mother Dead

  1. How does the legislation deal with the question of abortion? I am certainly for the saving of the mother's life when her life is in danger. And by the traditional Catholic doctrine of "double effect" if the mother's life is in danger and there is no way to safeguard both the mother and child, a procedure that saves the life of the mother but ends up killing the child is _not_ considered an abortion because the intent is _not_ to destroy the child but rather to save the mother.

    But I would not be for a piece of legislation, for instance, that would use concerns for the health of the mother as a cover to allow for government funding of elective abortions.

  2. Fr Kriz, what if the only "procedure" to save the mother's life IS terminating the pregnancy? What if terminating a pregnancy to save the mother means her 5 already born children would NOT be made orphans? What if the baby in the womb has a 10% or less chance of surviving- would you doom that baby to 15 minutes of gasping for air before succumbing to inevitable death? I am personally anti-abortion for myself- but I have never been in any of the difficult situations I described above- and these are but a few variables of the many problems pregnant women face. I believe the choice to terminate a pregnancy is a very personal one- I would hope of course that it never is for personal convenience, but I believe the answer to that problem is better more frank and honest education of our young people and access to preventative methods of birth control. We also need immediate counseling for victims of rape and/or incest and laws that effectively deal with the perpetrators of such crimes. The Church has had a long history of turning a blind eye and deaf ear to women- and as such has done more to add to their problems than it has to add real, practical solutions.

    • If the only procedure to save the mother IS terminating the pregnancy (as in, for instance a TUBAL PREGNANCY) then the Catholic Church does not consider that an abortion as the intent is NOT to kill the child but to save the mother.

      As for the other case that you give — I personally know a child that is COMPLETELY HEALTHY (and is now 4 years old) that EVERY PRE-NATAL TEST INDICATED WOULD BE BORN WITH HORRIBLE BIRTH-DEFECTS and the parents had been counseled REPEATEDLY to abort the child. The parents decided to go to term with the pregnancy but themselves were convinced that the child was going to be born horribly deformed. SHE WAS BORN COMPLETELY FINE and is now 4 years old WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS AT ALL. Prenatal tests are not necessarily infalible …

  3. How lucky many of us are to have our mothers as we grew up. Many didn't.

  4. for starters Dr. who is the government to tell me what to do with my body it isnt n e ones decision but my own. secondly I am not for abortion myself but if my daughter was a victim of rape or incest I wld strongly advise her to abort. I had a baby out of rape and ended up putting her up for adoption and my parents adopted her and to this day I have never b een allowed to live it down when it was the right thing to do. if it was your daughter what would you do? something to think about befor you go barking up trees

  5. How does the legislation deal with the question of abortion? I am certainly for the saving of the mother’s life when her life is in danger. And by the traditional Catholic doctrine of “double effect” if the mother’s life is in danger and there is no way to safeguard both the mother and child, a procedure that saves the life of the mother but ends up killing the child is _not_ considered an abortion because the intent is _not_ to destroy the child but rather to save the mother.

    But I would not be for a piece of legislation, for instance, that would use concerns for the health of the mother as a cover to allow for government funding of elective abortions.

  6. Fr Kriz, what if the only “procedure” to save the mother’s life IS terminating the pregnancy? What if terminating a pregnancy to save the mother means her 5 already born children would NOT be made orphans? What if the baby in the womb has a 10% or less chance of surviving- would you doom that baby to 15 minutes of gasping for air before succumbing to inevitable death? I am personally anti-abortion for myself- but I have never been in any of the difficult situations I described above- and these are but a few variables of the many problems pregnant women face. I believe the choice to terminate a pregnancy is a very personal one- I would hope of course that it never is for personal convenience, but I believe the answer to that problem is better more frank and honest education of our young people and access to preventative methods of birth control. We also need immediate counseling for victims of rape and/or incest and laws that effectively deal with the perpetrators of such crimes. The Church has had a long history of turning a blind eye and deaf ear to women- and as such has done more to add to their problems than it has to add real, practical solutions.

  7. How lucky many of us are to have our mothers as we grew up. Many didn’t.

  8. for starters Dr. who is the government to tell me what to do with my body it isnt n e ones decision but my own. secondly I am not for abortion myself but if my daughter was a victim of rape or incest I wld strongly advise her to abort. I had a baby out of rape and ended up putting her up for adoption and my parents adopted her and to this day I have never b een allowed to live it down when it was the right thing to do. if it was your daughter what would you do? something to think about befor you go barking up trees

  9. Fr. Kriz is against "government funding of elective abortions."

    His ideal state, then …. Texas ?

    Texas stopped funding Medicaid abortions.

    To get an abortion in 1977, a Texas woman, Rosie Jimenez, had to travel across the border into Mexico .

    There she got a back – alley abortion … & never lived to tell her tale.

    i don't know if the Church blessed her with a Christian burial.

    ** ** **.**

    50 million people without health coverage today.

    26 millions unemployed or underemployed …… or have just simply given up looking for any work at all in despair.

    The middle class ITSELF is getting wiped out.

    In such a state of things, when we can't satisfy the people's simplest needs, what in God's name are we doing pussyfooting around the issue of EVERYWOMAN'S fundamental RIGHT to abortion ??

    Is our God or our consciences or moralities THAT impervious to the demands everyday reality's making on our sisters ?

  10. Fr. Kriz is against “government funding of elective abortions.”

    His ideal state, then …. Texas ?

    Texas stopped funding Medicaid abortions.

    To get an abortion in 1977, a Texas woman, Rosie Jimenez, had to travel across the border into Mexico .

    There she got a back – alley abortion … & never lived to tell her tale.

    i don’t know if the Church blessed her with a Christian burial.

    ** ** **.**

    50 million people without health coverage today.

    26 millions unemployed or underemployed …… or have just simply given up looking for any work at all in despair.

    The middle class ITSELF is getting wiped out.

    In such a state of things, when we can’t satisfy the people’s simplest needs, what in God’s name are we doing pussyfooting around the issue of EVERYWOMAN’S fundamental RIGHT to abortion ??

    Is our God or our consciences or moralities THAT impervious to the demands everyday reality’s making on our sisters ?

  11. Maternal morbidity and mortality is not only a result of poor access to health care
    although this undeniably a factor. More importantly the socioeconomic standard
    of the society .Education is crucial in improving maternal mortality.
    In the US we have the highest expense on health care per capita but as noted we don't have the lowest maternal mortality.
    It is a multifactorial problem that need a lot of efforts to solve.
    Great topic and well said ,increasing the awareness of a cruicial problem of paramount importance.

  12. Maternal morbidity and mortality is not only a result of poor access to health care
    although this undeniably a factor. More importantly the socioeconomic standard
    of the society .Education is crucial in improving maternal mortality.
    In the US we have the highest expense on health care per capita but as noted we don’t have the lowest maternal mortality.
    It is a multifactorial problem that need a lot of efforts to solve.
    Great topic and well said ,increasing the awareness of a cruicial problem of paramount importance.

  13. I am so sad to know that large number of mothers is dying throughout the world post delivery. One woman dying every 90 second is too bad. I thought that medical science has improved a lot and the death ratio due to child birth has decreased. Thank you for unveiling the truth.

  14. These statistics are very bad. Women need all the support they can get. It's horrible that they die during childbirth. Basically they die for being women.

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