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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
In the heat of a late September day in Mozambique, southern Africa, we started filming a meeting of young charity volunteers. They had poured heart and soul into an ambitious project aimed at combating HIV and spreading a message about contraception in the province of Gaza.
Then, out of the blue, and as our cameras rolled, came an unexpected announcement: the volunteers' work was to end because of a new policy from the United States.
Under US President Donald Trump's "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" policy, any foreign aid organisation that wants US funds cannot "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries".
Sebastiao Muthisse from AMODEFA, the Mozambican Association for Family Development, outlined the dilemma the aid organisation faced. They were not prepared to sign Trump's so-called 'global gag rule 'forbidding mention of abortion, and, as a result, projects had to close. For the youngsters it appeared to make no sense. Surely lack of advice on family planning would lead to unwanted pregnancies? Why should they be censored when it came to speaking about abortion?
AMODEFA, a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has worked in Mozambique since 1989. Now, the stance both organisations have taken on the Trump rule means they face losing millions of dollars in US aid, and for AMODEFA in Mozambique two-thirds of their total budget, a sum of $2m.
It's led to hard decisions, particularly when it comes to critical work on HIV prevention.
In a suburb of the capital Maputo, we met Palmira Tembe. Members of Palmira's family have died; five grandchildren are now dependent on her, along with her 13 year-old-son Nelson.
AMODEFA has received funds to help people like Palmira disclose to their families that they have HIV, and to support their care. Palmira told us that prior to the charity's involvement she couldn't tell her son Nelson why he was sick. Now both take HIV medicine together.
We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have – they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status. In a country where it's estimated that up to 13 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 live with HIV, the support of organisations like AMODEFA can be a lifeline. But the work AMODEFA does with families like Palmira's is under threat, due to their refusal to sign up to the Trump policy.
Project leader Dr Marcelo Kantu is concerned about the future. "We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have - they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status," he told us.
Visiting those supported by charity work in Mozambique, there was a recurring question: With the heavy price organisations could pay for defying the new US policy, why not forget about the abortion issue, sign up to the Trump rule, and keep American aid money?
Activists and charity workers told us it was not only about upholding a principle of choice, it was about free speech and a law introduced in Mozambique to save lives.
Mozambique liberalised its law on abortion in 2014, not least due to the high numbers of maternal deaths from illegal terminations. Since then, abortion is a legal option up until 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in cases of rape or incest during the first 16 weeks.
But there is Mozambique's new law on the one hand, and the Trump policy on the other.
It has long been understood that aid donations are sometimes an integral part of foreign policy; aid can be given in the hope that the recipient will favour the donor further along the line, perhaps with trade agreements or regional political support.
But is this a case of the donor wanting to influence a law that has been passed by a democratically elected government? Should aid be used as a way of dictating 'democracy' to follow the donor's views rather than allowing each democratic nation to evolve into the nation that its own citizens want?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:56PM (3 children)
This comment, as well as several others made in this thread, speaks to the greatest difference between the pro-abortion and anti-abortion factions: one side equates children, human lives, with inanimate objects like cars and dehumanizes them as if a fetus were not part of the human lifecycle, while the other side deeply values humanity and life. That kind of fundamental divide is what makes abortion such a touchstone issue in politics. When one person dehumanizes a life and equates a human being with a material possession, while another values life as something sacred transcending materialism, the two will have trouble finding common ground.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday December 10 2017, @08:40PM (2 children)
HOLY SHIT!
Sanctimonious much?
I used the car analogy because the joke is, can you give me a car analogy!!!!!!!
So shut the fuck up!
Here's you: a Rolls Royce that has only been touched by the fecking Pope and never been driven!
What kind of life is a kid going to have if he is unwanted and cannot be taken care of by crack mom and douche dad?
My wife sees these kids all the time in the school system and she cries for them.
Will you adopt and care for ALL these unwanted kids? If my wife had the money, she would.
But too many times have I heard the HIGH and MIGHTY such as yourself say "think of the children" and then walk away without actually thinking of the children...children who have had HORRIBLE, HORRIFIC lives and YOU don't give a shit about!!!!!!!
FUCK.
OFF.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 11 2017, @11:14PM (1 child)
Because, after all, humans aren't special. They're just animals. And animals are just matter that happened to self-organize. And someday, the sun is going to go nova and it'll be like none of this even happened.
And there's no creator or higher power that anyone has to answer to for LITERALLY MURDERING BABIES. We're actually pretty lucky to have no responsibility for anything that happens and free reign to do whatever we want. No higher moral power. No anything. Everything is just whatever the more powerful creature wants.
We might as well just throw away every law (moral and written) that prevents humans from harming one another and let the chaos work itself out.
Human life begins at conception? Please. It's just a sperm and egg cell...That's not human life. And you know what? Fully grown humans are basically just the same thing. Just trillions and trillions of cells. That's not human life, either. There's no such thing as human life. There's no such thing as life. It's all just accidental happenstance. Amino acids which beat the odds for no reason in particular, especially considering the imminent heat death of the universe, in the grand scheme of things.
And the incredibly scary part is that you have likely, over time, convinced yourself to believe all of that. The world is a horrible place with horrible people, regardless of income or political affiliation. It's every individual's responsibility to do their absolute best to make it a better place, and the sobering fact is that we've all failed--and continue to fail--profoundly...Unless, of course, it's all one big accident, in which case who cares: the human race will be dead soon anyway.
One side fights to murder children before they have a chance to live. The other side fights to keep them alive--at least until they're born--and then pats themselves on the back for a job well done, as the kids go on to live miserable lives.
EVERYONE is a culprit here. But the ones who LITERALLY MURDER BABIES are far worse off. The people who are against abortion have the right idea but don't take it far enough. The ones who promote abortion and have no moral qualms about it have completely given up their humanity and are nothing more than animals, and the worst part is that they're proud of it.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 11 2017, @11:57PM
No, see, now we're in agreement! But it has to be done properly.
"I want an abortion: if you won't let me, you need to take care of it" reads as "I want an abortion: if you won't let me, you need to have some system to properly take care of it, such as adoption by CAREFULLY vetted adults who will not abuse the child, or by some community care whereby the community takes care of it properly". YES!
But reality is, Childrens Aid (here in Canada) now has such a caseload and not enough care givers that they will only take a child away from the parents if there is serious physical abuse. And often times, these scum parents go to court and get custody back, even if the child has been placed in a proper home where they are loved and cared for and educated.
Reality is, too many kids end up on the streets to be prostitutes because their care giver wasnt vetted properly and has been sexually abusing the kid.
Reality is, sooo many of these kids are born with severe problems due to being birthed by crack users. Sooo many of these kids are being born into horribly abusive households.
Virtual reality says, "Yes, lets take these kids and love them, feed them, educate them and make them feel loved and worth while."
Real reality says, "No you can't abort this thing: so until the cops come and arrest you, you can do WHATEVER THE FECK you want with them until they feel like a piece of shit and kill themselves"
One boy that my wife was teaching (she's an Educational Assistant with the school board with a Behavioural Science Technology background and takes the slower/problem kids in groups to do specialized teaching) told her, "I wish you were my mom."
How fecked is that. The kid is so unloved and mis-treated by his mother that he wants a 'stranger' to be his mom. (Like i said before, if we were ultra-rich, she'd be adopting kids like fecking crazy)
THAT is reality.
but yes, we are on the same page. Reality is dividing us. I myself would rather see a kid 'murdered' than to have to spend his/her life being raised by, basically, Josef Mengeles (Mengele's... Mengeles'?.... a couple (or single) who are real human trash who, ironically, should have been aborted, not born).
THIS IS one of the reasons i hate the power corporations have. One of the reasons corporations need to be made to pay more tax. So we can maybe afford to pay for something like you want, something like i'd like to see. Reality is, won't happen.
Sad, but true.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---