Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-12-Speech-3-278"
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"en.20030212.9.3-278"2
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"Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for what he has said, and also Mrs Sandbæk for so eloquently defining why this is such an important and urgent regulation for us to deal with tomorrow.
The WHO estimates that 88-98% of all maternal deaths are avoidable if women have access to proper reproductive and obstetric health services. Recently on a visit to Rwanda I learned that 2 000 women die per 100 000 live births. In my own country, the United Kingdom, that figure is seven.
Maternal mortality continues to rise in developing countries. Women die from haemorrhaging, from infections, from high blood pressure, from obstructed labour. They also die from unsafe abortions. The last speaker talked about the rights of governments to choose. I would emphasise that women in these situations also have the right to choose. If women in a country like mine have that right, then I would also argue that a woman who wishes, because of a variety of different circumstances, to make that choice, then that should be her right. Providing for reproductive health is not a euphemism for abortion services. Women have the right to reliable information and to compassionate counselling.
We must at all costs avoid being drawn into debates which are only about us reflecting United States domestic policy. The reality is that if we do not receive a positive vote tomorrow, there will be no budget line. We will be guilty of turning our backs on a maternal carnage such as we see in developing countries. Is that the signal we want to send from this Parliament to the suffering women of the developing world?
Now the European Union – and I emphasise also the governments of the south – needs to do more on maternal mortality, on HIV, on reproductive health and on contraception. North and south need to work together on everything from the country strategy papers which we produce with developing countries to prioritising gender issues and reproductive health and rights.
Finally, I should like to say that it is very important that we have an understanding of gender and reproductive rights as a cross-cutting issue. We must invest more resources and interest to ensure that women can bear children in safety and with the freedom to choose if, when and how often to do so."@en1
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