FCI

January 27, 2009.

Dear friends,

Last Friday afternoon, as you have probably heard, President Obama issued an executive order rescinding the Global Gag Rule. The president also said that he will work with Congress to restore U.S. funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), thus “joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries.”

As I wrote to you last week, we and many of our colleagues in the reproductive health community have been working to give the incoming Administration our input and encouragement as it develops a new approach to the U.S. role in development aid and global health. Last week’s important steps are, we hope, only a beginning.

Whatever their intent, the impact of the Global Gag Rule and the block on UNFPA funding over the last 8 years was to withhold vital lifesaving services — family planning, antenatal care, skilled care during childbirth, emergency and postpartum care — from millions of poor women in the developing world. That’s why, even though FCI doesn’t take USAID funding, we’ve been advocating to overturn these harmful policies — because we know that U.S. funding can do so much to save and improve lives in the world’s poor countries.

We hope and believe that President Obama’s executive order begins a process of substantive policy change. That is worth celebrating, but only for a moment — we still have much to do.

All our best,

Ann Starrs
FCI's President

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Inaugurating a new direction

January 20, 2009

Dear Friends,

“Motherhood and apple pie...” that’s what we call it when a politician tries to avoid controversy by talking about concepts with which no one could disagree. But perhaps motherhood is not as uncontroversial as this old American cliché would have it. In truth, supporting motherhood means supporting women’s control of their own reproductive health, and too few political leaders around the world have been willing to stand up for that.

Change is coming: last year both houses of Congress passed symbolic resolutions supporting greater global investment in maternal health. But having watched with great hope as Barack Obama took his oath, we are ready — after 8 years of U.S. policy grounded in ideological hostility to reproductive rights — for more than symbols.

Family Care International has been working with colleague organizations to propose a platform for real and lasting progress. On two recent trips to Washington for strategy meetings, I was often inspired (by our dynamic, practical community of advocates), if also occasionally frustrated (by the challenges we continue to face from forces hostile to reproductive rights). In these discussions, as in all of our advocacy, FCI works to ensure that the voices of women are heard loud and clear. For us, universal access to reproductive health care — including family planning, comprehensive sex education, and abortion-related services — is essential to solving the global problem of maternal mortality. An approach that ignores this imperative would leave millions of women vulnerable to early, preventable death. We’ve been down that road — the road of gag rules and “abstinence only” — and it leads nowhere. There’s been little progress against maternal death in the last 8 years, and over 4 million more women are dead. It’s time to head in a new direction.

We know how to save the lives of the half million women and four million newborn babies who die each year from lack of pregnancy care, unsafe abortion, and untreated childbirth and neonatal complications. Doing what needs to be done ought to be obvious, and no one should be against it. Just like motherhood and apple pie.

All our best,

Ann Starrs
FCI's President
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Then and Now

December 16, 2008

Dear friends,

Seventy-five years ago in New York City, women were dying in childbirth at almost exactly the same rate as is found today in countries like Bangladesh. A groundbreaking 1933 report investigating the causes of maternal mortality in New York determined that nearly two-thirds of those deaths were preventable. Over the next ten years, New York took concrete steps to improve maternity care, and maternal mortality declined by nearly two-thirds. By the early 1970s, maternal mortality had dropped almost to the rate found today — one of history’s great public health victories.

This month, the New York Academy of Medicine asked me to deliver a lecture commemorating the anniversary of their momentous study. The parallels with our situation today are heartbreaking, but also immensely hopeful.

Heartbreaking because, in some African countries, women are dying in pregnancy and childbirth at nearly double the rate that marked New York City’s crisis level of the early 1930s. In the few minutes you may spend reading this email, four or five women will die such preventable deaths, at immeasurable emotional and economic cost to their families, communities, and nations.

So, why are we hopeful? First, because we now know what the solution is — to provide family planning and other reproductive health services, skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth, emergency obstetric care for complications, and reliable follow-up care. Second, because incredible work by FCI and our colleagues is rolling out these solutions in a sustainable and scalable way. Third, because a new energy surrounds maternal health, sparked in part by the 2007 Women Deliver conference and the ongoing advocacy that emerged from it.

The missing element is money. A global investment of $5-6 billion per year to save the lives of mothers and their newborn babies would bring direct financial and human returns, since these deaths now cause $15 billion of lost productivity each year. As we approach 2009, let’s work to make it the year when we transform our hope into action — as New York City managed to do long ago.

All our best for a peaceful holiday season,

Ann M. Starrs
President
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A note on the U.S. election

November 10, 2008

Dear Friends,

One of the many remarkable and heartening aspects of the 2008 U.S. election is that it has engaged the entire world. As we have already heard from countless friends, colleagues, and supporters, we are suddenly living in a time not just of daunting challenges, but of inspiring opportunity and hope.

For those of us who work for sexual and reproductive health and rights, this moment is particularly promising. Barack Obama has, in his relatively brief time in the Senate, shown a clear commitment to our issues: he has sponsored legislation to support the Millennium Development Goals, has spoken out on the urgent need to build an effective global health infrastructure, and has signed a letter calling on Congress to allocate $1 billion for family planning and reproductive health. He, along with a Democratic Congress, can fundamentally transform U.S. government policy in ways that could have very concrete and real impacts on the lives of women around the world.

But this moment also presents a real challenge. As we all well know, reproductive health — including FCI’s core mission of making pregnancy and childbirth safer around the world — is just one of many pressing issues that President Obama will find on his desk. It is our job, together, to continue to argue forcefully for real, sustained political commitment to saving mothers’ and children’s lives, to advocate effectively for the financial investments needed to concretely express that commitment, and to develop the innovative, practical solutions that we know can make childbirth as safe for women in poor countries as it is for the women who voted to elect Barack Obama president.

As always, it is a job we take on willingly, with deep commitment and with great hope. As always, your support for our work can make a crucial difference.

All our best,

Ann M. Starrs
President

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