UN World Health Day Focuses on Children

WASHINGTON, DC - April 7, 2003

A world of healthy children needs a world of healthy mothers. Yet hundreds of thousands of women are dying every year due to lack of basic reproductive health care.

"When a mother dies, it has a devastating impact on the quality of a child's life. It is unacceptable that over half a million women die every year due to pregnancy-related causes. That's the equivalent of one Washington, DC-sized city. Ninety-nine percent of these deaths are in the developing world, and almost all of them are preventable — with access to reproductive health care," says Amy Coen, President of PAI.

Reproductive health care helps women in the world's poorest countries plan and space the number of children they wish to have. It helps ensure that women deliver healthy babies in safe environments. It saves thousands of women and children's lives every year. It helps prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. And access to family planning helps reduce unsafe abortion.

Under the Bush Administration, the United States has reneged on its $34 million pledge to the United Nations Population Fund; reinstated the Global Gag Rule and, most recently, threatened to expand the reach of the Global Gag Rule to include organizations receiving portions of President Bush’s $15 billion HIV/AIDS proposals — even refugee programs.

For more information, see the PAI FactSheet, How Family Planning Protects the Health of Women and Children

Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.