HEALTH INITIATIVE — Bloc Quebecois MP Johanne Deschamps, NDP MP John Rafferty, International Development Minister Bev Oda and Liberal MP Bob Rae were on Parliament Hill for a May 4 event in support of the Canadian G8 maternal and child health initiative. (CCN/Deborah Gyapong photo)

NGO health event upstaged by abortion debate

By Deborah Gyapong

Canadian Catholic News

CCN NGO event
NGO women and child health event upstaged by abortion debate

By Deborah Gyapong

OTTAWA (CCN) — A May 4 event in support of the Canadian G8 maternal and child health initiative got hijacked by the abortion debate when the Liberal foreign affairs critic insisted on raising the issue.
A coalition of nine major non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including World Vision, Care Canada, Save the Children, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, and Plan International, brought gift baskets for mothers that they laid on the steps of Parliament Hill.

They invited representatives from the four main political parties to their launch of A Week to Save Moms and Their Kids leading up to Mother’s Day.

The baskets contained birthing kits, rehydration salts, micronutrients and other life-saving items to highlight some of the simple but effective tools wealthy countries could make available to the developing world. They planned to give one to every member of Parliament that day.

Representatives from each organization came forward to praise Canada’s role in leading what was called an “historic” G8 maternal and child health initiative. Each group stressed the ways improved health care and other interventions could save the lives of the 300,000 women who die due to childbirth complications and the 8.8 million children who die before they reach the age of five every year.

International Development Minister Bev Oda described the gift baskets as a “tangible demonstration of what’s needed out there.”

She contrasted her birth, as the first Asian baby born in Thunder Bay, with that of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Oda was born in a hospital, surrounded by professionals with proper equipment.

Ban Ki-moon was born in a remote Korean village with no attendant, only a relative, she said. Recently in New York, he described how his mother took her shoes off, and asked whether she would be able to put them back on “because she didn’t know if she would survive the birthing process,” Oda said.

“This is the difference, the stark reality of what we have here in Canada, and what is not available to those women who are in the most remote rural villages, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.”

After lauding the initiative, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said he must remain consistent by bringing up “reproductive and sexual health” and a “woman’s right to choose” — all euphemisms for abortion.

“The problem is the government has an ideological agenda,” Rae told journalists, who scrummed him shortly after he left the microphone. The issue went beyond abortion and Afghan detainees to democracy, he said. “It’s about our commitment to recognizing women’s equality and the importance of advocacy.”

Rae said the Harper government had been cutting advocacy groups and accused the government of creating a climate of fear when journalists asked him about Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth’s advising aid groups to “shut the f*** up” about abortion until after the G8.

As the media surrounded Rae, Oda began to leave, prompting the reporters and cameras to chase after her. Plan Canada president Rosemary McCarney, who was the MC for the event, shrugged off the event’s abrupt ending, telling CCN she did not mind.

Oda’s office later accused the Liberals of “playing petty party politics.”
“It is shameful that the Liberal Party has chosen to turn an otherwise successful event into yet another unwanted debate on abortion,” said Oda’s spokesperson in an email. “NGOs and experts have applauded this government’s initiative to support mothers and children in the developing world.”

But not all Liberals support the insistence on abortion being included in the plan. When Rae put forward a motion in late March to commit Parliament to including abortion in the maternal health initiative, three pro-life Liberal MPs voted against it and more than a dozen stayed away, causing the motion’s defeat by a 144 to 138 vote.