How would you like to die in this way?:

September 24, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Prudence’s Struggle Ends
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
YOKADOUMA, Cameroon
As Prudence Lemokouno lay on a hospital bed here, spitting blood, her breath coming in terrible rattles, it was obvious that what was killing her wasn’t so much complications in pregnancy as the casual disregard for women like her across much of the developing world.

Neither Western donor countries like the U.S. nor poor recipients like Cameroon care much about Africans who are poor, rural and female, and so half a million such women die each year around the world in pregnancy. It’s not biology that kills them so much as neglect.

I began Prudence’s story in my column last Sunday, and for a while I thought I would have a happy ending.

Prudence, 24, was from a small village and already had three small children. As she was in labor to deliver her fourth, an untrained midwife didn’t realize she had a cervical blockage and sat on Prudence’s stomach to force the baby out — but instead her uterus ruptured and the fetus died.

Prudence’s family carried her to the hospital on a motorcycle, but once she was there the doctor, Pascal Pipi, demanded $100 for a Caesarian to remove the fetus. The fetus was decomposing inside her, and an infection was raging in her abdomen — but her family had total savings of only $20, so she lay down in the maternity ward and began to die.

I arrived the next day, interviewed Dr. Pipi about maternal mortality — and found Prudence fading away in the next room. Dr. Pipi said she needed a blood transfusion before the operation could begin, so a Times colleague, Naka Nathaniel, and I donated blood (yes, the needles were sterile) and cash.

The transfusion helped Prudence, and she grew strong enough to reach out her hand and respond to people around her. Dr. Pipi said the operation would begin promptly, and Prudence’s family was ecstatic. But as we waited in the hospital lobby, Dr. Pipi sneaked out the back door of the hospital and went home for the night.

It wasn’t just the doctor who failed Prudence, but the entire system. He did operate the next morning, but by then the infection had spread further — and the hospital had no powerful antibiotics. Prudence’s breathing grew strained, as her stomach ballooned with the infection and the bag of urine from her catheter overflowed. The nurses couldn’t be bothered with a poor villager like her.

That night she began vomiting and spitting blood. She slipped into a coma, and a towel beside her head grew soggy with blood and vomit. On Tuesday afternoon, she finally passed away.

Intellectually, I knew that women in Africa had a 1-in-20 lifetime risk of dying in childbirth. But it was wrenching to see this young mother of three fade and die so needlessly.

There’s no doubt that if men were dying at this rate, poor and rich countries alike would make the issue a priority, but the problem seems invisible, like the victims.

The U.N. Population Fund has a maternal health program in some Cameroon hospitals that might have saved Prudence’s life, but it doesn’t operate in this region. And it’s difficult to expand, because President Bush has cut U.S. funding for the population fund — even for African programs — because of false allegations that it supports abortions in China.

That’s shameful. Two women have tried to recoup American honor by starting a group, 34 Million Friends of U.N.F.P.A., to make up the shortfall with private donations.

(I discuss some of the groups active in this area at nytimes.com/ontheground, and I’ll also have a link to video of Prudence.)

Neither left nor right has focused adequately on maternal health. And abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries. We know exactly how to save the lives of women like Prudence, partly because a few countries like Sri Lanka and Honduras have led the way in slashing maternal mortality.

Lynn Freedman, head of the Averting Maternal Death and Disability program at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University (www.amdd.hs.columbia.edu), notes that we could provide all effective interventions for maternal and newborn health to 95 percent of the world’s population for an additional $9 billion per year.

Sure, that’s a lot. But think of Prudence and women like her dying in childbirth at a rate of one a minute — and after all, the world spends $40 billion a year on pet food.
True Blue Liberal » Prudence’s Struggle Ends

This isn't so much a story about the need for abortion, as it is a story about the need for better health-care in poor countries.

Nice try though...

Oooh. Swing and a missed the point from Jefferson.

Let's play that again, zooming in with slow motion...

"The U.N. Population Fund has a maternal health program in some Cameroon hospitals that might have saved Prudence’s life, but it doesn’t operate in this region. And it’s difficult to expand, because President Bush has cut U.S. funding for the population fund — even for African programs — because of false allegations that it supports abortions in China. "

Wrong.

Again.


It is NOT the fault of President Bush that this woman suffered this way, you Ninny. What is wrong with you?

Maybe the continent of Africa ought to pull its collective head out of its ass, and learn to deal with some of its overwhelming problems - instead of complaining that the United States isn't paying for it.

It is Bush's fault she didn't get the proper care SHE COULD HAVE GOTTEN if Bush's actions hadn't DIRECTLY LIMITED what medical she could get...

I'll repeat it again, since you obviously couldn't address it last time...

"The U.N. Population Fund has a maternal health program in some Cameroon hospitals that might have saved Prudence’s life, but it doesn’t operate in this region. And it’s difficult to expand, because President Bush has cut U.S. funding for the population fund — even for African programs — because of false allegations that it supports abortions in China. "

Bush PULLED FUNDING from these hospitals based on his POLITICS regarding abortion.
And now women and their babies are dying because of it.

People like you don't give a crap about that. It's just "God's will" to you if you look the other way while a mother and child die in child-birth, isn't it...
But heaven forbid the mother have an abortion. Because THAT would be the real crime...


Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Mat 25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink?
Mat 25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]?
Mat 25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
Mat 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.

That's a pile of horse crap!

This happened in Cameroon, you ninny! And aren't you, and all the other liberal terrorist-sympathizers always screaming about how America ought to "mind its own business"?

Okay, let's mind our own business. Let's let these backward savages take care of themselves.

Stop trying to blame Bush for all the world's woes. It exposes, clearly, what a blind hater you are.

I don't usually agree with Jefferson in this section of the forum, but I agree with the above statement.

I partially agree, but Africa needs money to dig itself out of the hole it's in. Instead of throwing money at the problem though, we should make sure that aid money is used for building businesses, farms, infrastructure, etc. The American government doesn't provide Americans with free health care, so why should be provide it to Africans?

Oh yes. "mind its own business" obviously means when we provide humanitarian health care to a country, we should pull it if they don't pony up to the abortion ideals of whoever is the president.
Or, we just shouldn't supply any humanitarian aid at all. A perfect example of how we should "mind our own business", while we invade countries like Iraq which have no WMDs to set up the democracy government we think they should have.


I'm not blaming Bush for the "world's woes". But nice attempt at the straw man.
The point is that Bush is using this aid to enforce a policy that would be ILLEGAL in the U.S.
Could you imagine if he tried to say that hospitals in the U.S. which aided in abortions would be subject to penalties?
Yet he can pull this crap in international policy.

How about addressing the REAL issue.
If (and when) we do give foreign humanitarian medical aid, it's given out unilaterally with no preference given to hospitals based on their potential abortion activities.

Whatever policy the U.S. adopts, the abortion policies and actions of the recipients SHOULD NOT come into play in the decision.

Could you imagine the stink that the conservatives would throw up if a liberal president stated that he would withhold funding to any hospital that did NOT have legal abortion as an option???