FMF’s National Clinic Access Project (NCAP) began shortly after FMF was founded and provides a great gamut of assistance to women’s health care providers targeted by anti-abortion extremists. Just to give you an idea of what we do – NCAP specializes in tracking anti-abortion extremists, works with federal, state and local law enforcement to protect abortion providers, provides grass-roots organizing support for clinics, recruits pro-bono legal help for clinics under siege, and even makes emergency grants to targeted clinics to improve security measures. So when the National Clinic Access Project heard Operation Rescue/Operation Save America announce a national siege of Charlotte-area abortion providers in July, NCAP immediately began to organize to protect the clinics, their workers, physicians and patients in advance of the OR/OSA week of harassment.

That’s where I come in. As part of my internship, I traveled to Charlotte as part of the NCAP team to work with FMF national organizer, campus organizer, legal coordinator and two other interns to help organize clinic defense, grass roots trainings, legal observing and escorting, but most of my efforts focused on clinic defense. Clinic defense is literally about mobilizing a ton of pro-choice peeps to create a human buffer zone between anti-abortion zealots and clinic staff and patients. Clinic defense is also critical to helping maintain access to clinic driveways and entrances while sending a critical message of support to the clinic.

Also, what I learned is that clinic defense can also provide a distraction for anti-abortion protesters so that they don’t bother the patients. If OR/OSA is too busy yelling at a clinic defender, they don’t tent to notice a car pulling into the drive way with a patient. Although clinic defenders create a buffer zone and often take the focus of the anti’s attention, we (as clinic defenders) must not cause problems for the clinic — or the police, which is why NCAP strictly enforces a non-engagement policy. No witty comebacks, no arguing, no general conversation with the anti’s. You have to be completely stone-faced. Which frustrates them even more so they get caught up in “breaking” you and forget about patients (win).

This principle of non-engagement is covered meticulously in clinic defense trainings — along with a pledge of non-violence. On the last training before the siege, the NCAP clinic defense team, along with ProChoice Charlotte and the UNCC Feminist Union, met with an eager group of activists who were ready to face Operation Save America. A few had done escorting in the past, but most were new to the clinic defense scene. We had everyone introduce themselves and explain why they were there and then gave some general information about the non-engagement policy and what should be expected throughout the week. We emphasized that we are the guests of the clinic and that we must abide by what the clinic wants, and engaging with anti-choice protesters would not be tolerated. We then all got up and practiced linking arms in a line and also how to create a buffer around a patient (you can never be too prepared, plus it’s also just good to know). After getting the basic linking down, we then took a stab at practicing our non-engagement faces. We formed two lines and stood facing each other. We then started yelling insults at each other, one side pretending to be anti-choice protesters. Then one side pretended to be anti’s while the other completely ignored them so we could get a feel of just how reserved we would need to be.

We also mentioned as clinic defense it’s important to be aware of any information relevant to helping the clinic. This included alerting law enforcement when there was a problem, and notifying NCAP leaders if OR/OSA was trespassing or violating city ordinances.

Despite OR/OSA running amuck in the city, the pro-choice community of Charlotte was amazing. The NCAP team was welcomed with wide open arms. My campus organizer and I stayed with a professor from Davidson College that I had never met before, and he went out of his way to make sure we were as happy as could be. We were welcome in everyone’s home, even those who weren’t connected to the clinics at all. Pro-Choice Charlotte, Charlotte NOW, Planned Parenthood, UNCC Feminist Union, and many unaffiliated individuals who worked alongside NCAP created a dazzling web of pro-choice support and grassroots activism that would eventually lead to the first harassment-free day at a local clinic in eight years. Even local law enforcement which had been reluctant to help in the past took a new turn in supporting the clinics. It also lead to the creation of new alliances, friendships, and overall feminist fuzzy feelings between everyone there. My convictions were reaffirmed, and even strengthened by facing the extremist opposition. While draining emotionally and physically, and at times just ridiculous, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.

–
Photo: Chalk message outside a local Charlotte clinic Friday, July 16th

The pressure has already begun. Starting in December, WANTED posters featuring the personal information, including home addresses, of two Charlotte doctors were handed out in their neighborhoods and at clinics. In the 1990′s, similar posters were seen before Dr. Gunn and Dr. Bayard Britton who were killed in Florida by anti-abortion extremists.

But we will keep Charlotte North Carolina the Queen’s city.

Since OR/OSA announced its plan for the Charlotte clinic Feminist Majority Foundation has been working with officials and community leaders in the local area to prepare for the oncoming siege. During the siege FMF will have a team of six, including their legal coordinator and Clinic Defense team, working to make sure that Charlotte clinics stay open and safe.

During the siege, an intern will be live tweeting and blogging from the front lines of the abortion battle using @feministcampus, @majorityspeaks, and @femmajority. Look for the hashtag #ClinicDef for the latest updates.

–
Photo credit: respres on flickr.com

Last week, we told you of the imperative need to improve the clinic’s security system to help prevent invasions – the clinic had just been invaded by a anti-abortion extremist who got as far as the waiting room before being stopped. That won’t happen again.

Thanks to the generosity of many of you, we were able to fund improvements to clinics security system to stop hostile intruders. Believe me the clinic administrators, staff, and doctors are very grateful. But we must do more.

Everyday, the leading anti-abortion extremist in Jackson, who is an advocate of Justifiable Homicide – or the belief that justifies the murder of doctors who perform abortions. The clinic and its doctors have been repeatedly threatened.

The women’s health care provider and its doctors and staff need our help now. The clinic needs immediate help to pursue legal strategies and to make additional enhancements to its security system.

Our National Clinic Access Project legal coordinator has traveled to Jackson to assist the clinic. She met with clinic staff and community pro-choice supporters to discuss ways to improve security, to assess legal needs and to devise new ways for the local community to support this critically needed health facility. Our legal team is now working to retain legal council. We are determined to do everything we can to keep Jackson Women’s Health Organization open and its patients, doctors, and staff safe.

Please help the doctors, health care workers, and patients of Jackson Women’s Health Organization today by making an emergency, tax-deductible contribution. Half your contribution will go directly to the clinic to help pay for upgraded and additional enhanced security measures.

The other half of your emergency contribution will help support our National Clinic Access Project’s work to keep this clinic and other besieged clinics across the country safe and open. The demand for our work is dramatically increasing.

Our project is also working with Dr. Carhart and his clinic in Nebraska. Dr. Carhart, who had worked with Dr. Tiller, and his clinic were immediately targeted for closing by Wichita-based Operation Rescue after the murder of Dr. Tiller. This group had harassed Dr. Tiller for seven years.

And we are also working very closely with Family Reproductive Health in Charlotte, NC under siege by Operation Save America/Operation Rescue. Recently, anti-abortion extremists published the photographs of and information about the clinic’s doctors in a WANTED poster. Similar posters appeared before the brutal murders of two doctors in Pensacola, Florida.

Without doctors and clinics to provide safe, legal abortions and access to birth control, there can be no choice for women. Please make an emergency contribution today to help Jackson Women’s Health Organization and our National Clinic Access Project.

Together we are making a difference.

Iran steps up arrests of women’s rights and human rights activists. This past weekend, on the one year anniversary of the disputed June 2009 elections, Narges Mohammadi, a feminist and vice-president for Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi’s human rights organization, was arrested. No information is known about where she is being held or the charges against her.

Take a minute to show your solidarity with Iranian feminists and demand the release of Mohammadi and other imprisoned women’s rights and human rights advocates.

Iranian authorities have especially targeted Ebadi and her organization, the Defenders of Human Rights Center, in an effort to stop her advocacy for human rights and women’s rights. Her organization’s offices were raided and shut down in December 2009. Then in January, Ebadi’s sister, a professor in dentistry, Noushin Ebadi, was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents and held without charge for 17 days before her release. Then Shirin Ebadi’s husband, Javad Tavasolian, was arrested for 3 days and forced to videotape a “confession” making derogatory comments about Ebadi and her work for human rights. Javad’s passport was confescated and Shirin and Javad’s assets, bank accounts, and pensions were frozen by the government.

Many women’s rights leaders, including more than 50 women involved in the One Million Signatures Campaign for Women’s Equality, have been arrested – and some have been tortured. The One Million Signatures Campaign demands an end to discriminatory laws against women in Iran. You see, being a feminist in Iran is a crime against the state.

Please voice your support for the Iranian feminists as they fight for equality and freedom. Your support and emails have helped in the past, and these women and courageous activists need our help again.

Ebadi, who cannot return to her country, has shown repeatedly she cannot be intimidated by the threats and arrests. She needs our support – as do the brave women leaders of the Million Signatures Campaign who, despite arrests, threats and intimidation, continue their work on behalf of women’s full equality.

Take a moment now to show your solidarity with the One Million Signatures Campaign and Human Rights activist Shirin Ebadi by sending emails to protest the arrest of Narges Mohammadi and other feminists, and to demand women’s equality under the law and respect for universal human rights.

We must not be silent in the face of this oppression.

Thankfully, many of you have responded to our requests for help for this clinic, with your support we has just funded an improvement to the clinic’s security system that will help prevent future invasions. But we must do more.

Just one year ago, Dr. George Tiller was brutally murdered. His killer, Scott Roeder, has been sentenced to life in prison, but the extremists have not been deterred.

The leading anti-abortion extremist in Jackson is an advocate of Justifiable Homicide – or the belief that justifies the murder of doctors who perform abortions. The clinic and its doctors have been repeatedly threatened.

The clinic needs immediate help to pursue legal strategies and to make additional enhancements to its security system.

Our National Clinic Access Project legal coordinator has traveled to Jackson to assist the clinic. She met with clinic staff and community pro-choice supporters to discuss ways to improve security, to assess legal needs and to devise new ways for the local community to support this critically needed health facility. We are determined to do everything we can to keep Jackson Women’s Health Organization open and its patients, doctors and staff safe.

Help the doctors, health care workers, and patients of Jackson Women’s Health Organization today by making an emergency, tax-deductible contribution. Half your contribution will go directly to the clinic to help pay for upgraded and additional enhanced security measures.

The other half of your emergency contribution will help support our National Clinic Access Project’s work to keep this clinic and other besieged clinics across the country safe and open. The demand for our work is dramatically increasing.

As I write this, we are also working with Dr. Carhart and his clinic in Nebraska. Dr. Carhart, who had worked with Dr. Tiller, and his clinic were immediately targeted for closing by Wichita-based Operation Rescue after the murder of Dr. Tiller. This group had harrassed Dr. Tiller for seven years.

And we are also working very closely with Family Reproductive Health in Charlotte, NC under siege by Operation Save America/Operation Rescue. Recently, anti-abortion extremists published the photographs of and information about the clinic’s doctors in a WANTED poster. Similar posters appeared before the brutal murders of two doctors in Pensacola, Florida.

Without doctors and clinics to provide safe, legal abortions and access to birth control, there can be no choice for women. Please make an emergency contribution today to help Jackson Women’s Health Organization and our National Clinic Access Project.

Together we are making a difference.

It’s Day 3 of the three-day international conference Women Deliver 2010

Want to do something to help? You can click here to urge President Obama to keep the U.S.’s promise to ensure women everywhere universal access to reproductive-health services, family planning, and basic education by 2015.

Advocacy and Activism

A session put together by the Merlin Group, an international medical nonprofit organization, focused on how to train health workers and increase the number of skilled birth attendants in fragile, conflict-stricken states. The desired outcome: meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG)5, which aims to cut world maternal mortality deaths by three-quarters.

Where exactly are women, specifically mothers, dying? According to Merlin, almost 50 percent of maternal deaths occur in fragile states. Merlin reports that, with the exception of Afghanistan, more women die in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world.

Afghanistan has the second highest rate of maternal-related deaths in the world: One in eight Afghan women will die from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. Compare this to one in 4,800 in the United States and one in 17,400 in Sweden. War-torn Afghanistan has been left with a poorly functioning health care system and a drastic shortage of doctors, nurses and midwives. Only 14 percent of Afghan women receive skilled medical attention during pregnancy or childbirth, so death by hemorrhaging and prolonged or obstructed labor is a very real threat. Most women have never seen a doctor, and few have access to contraception.

Merlin’s two community midwife training schools, in the Takhar and Kunduz provinces of Afghanistan, have so far trained 155 students to go out and work in their communities. “With more skilled health workers, more mothers will be saved,” Merlin states. “If change can happen in Afghanistan, then it can happen anywhere.”

The Feminist Majority Foundation has long advocated for the health and rights of Afghan women and girls, and its health initiative for Afghan women  works to increase the number of midwives in order to reduce the maternal mortality rate. You can join the campaign and help save Afghan women’s lives: Find out more about the Afghan’s Women’s Women’s Health Initiative here [PDF].

–Anushay Hossain

Cervical Cancer is a Problem of Inequity

1 p.m. I spoke with Dr. Lynette Denny, principal specialist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. For the past 15 years, Dr. Denny’s research has focused on cervical cancer prevention in low-resource settings.

Ms. magazine Blog/Danielle Roderick: Yesterday you mentioned that cervical cancer is as much a tragedy as maternal mortality. How so?

Dr. Lynette Denny: In some areas, more women die from cervical cancer than they do from maternal mortality, particularly in Eastern Europe. Certainly in Africa, maternal mortality has been a much bigger problem, But if you think about who dies … in pregnancy-related deaths it tends to be younger women, where with cervical cancer it’s older women who have a very important role to play, particularly in poor communities. In parts of my country in South Africa, 70 percent of households are headed by women, and they’re the sole breadwinners.

Ms.: The winter Issue of Ms. looked at how men’s health is a feminist issue, especially regarding HPV. How does that come into play here?

LD: Involving men is very important. It’s a resource issue. If you have no resource constraints, it makes sense to vaccinate boys and girls, but where you have resource constraints it’s more cost effective to vaccinate women first, and then as your resources increase you include men.

Ms.: Is it easier to address HPV as a women’s issue, like cervical cancer, rather than as an STI?

LD: Certainly in most developing countries we are not interested in putting this as a prevention of an STI. We talk about this as a cancer vaccine. There are two problems with the word STI–one is the perception that you’re dirty, promiscuous, all that language. The other is that HPV is a very different STI  because … whether you manifest an HPV-related disease or not, it’s a manifestation of your own immune system.

Many of the women I treat have only had one partner in their lives, have never been promiscuous … but acquire HPV through [that] partner. She lives life, she’s a poor woman, she has TB, she might have a compromised immune system–so she develops cervical cancer because her system was unable to get rid of the virus. But that only happens 30 years later.

Ms.: What do people need to know about cervical cancer?

LD: It is a common killer and preventable.  We’ve known for over 100 years how to prevent this disease, yet we’ve not brought the technology to women in poor countries. It’s a disease of inequity. It’s highly political.

If you’re a poor black woman born in Africa and you get HPV infection, you’ll die of cervical cancer. You won’t even have access to treatment. If you are a woman infected with HPV in New York, either your immune system will be so strong (because you’re well-nourished, etc. ) you won’t manifest, or if you get cervical cancer you’ll survive it, or it will be prevented because you will get a pap smear every year. It is really a disease of inequity of access to healthcare.

–Danielle Roderick

Ghana Seeks Greater Progress Against Maternal Mortality

11:02 a.m. I interviewed Dorothy Onny, one of several African leaders participating in Women Deliver. As deputy director for Ghana’s Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, she is hesitant to rate Ghana’s progress on reducing maternal mortality. In fact, Onny says that all of Africa is facing the same problem: keeping women from dying from pregnancy-related complications. According to Onny, Ghana is intensifying its efforts to make greater progress, including initiating public education campaigns to get more women to seek prenatal and postnatal care, and to encourage them to get help earlier before they experience complications. She says delaying medical care is one of the major causes of maternal mortality. And she says that Ghana–like many other African nations–needs financial support to sustain any progress in saving women’s lives.

–Belle Taylor-McGhee

CEDAW–Pushing Ahead for Ratification

11 a.m. During a panel, Ellie Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and publisher of Ms., says there is growing support to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW.) But politicians are standing in the way of history.

The U.S. is one of the last holdouts to ratify the international treaty, which supports women’s basic human rights, including access to basic healthcare (which could improve maternal health), pay equity for women, prevention of violence and women’s right to property and other basic human rights. Sixty-seven votes are needed to pass CEDAW in the Senate and, according to supporters; they are only eight votes shy of a victory.

–Belle Taylor-McGhee

Joan Walsh: Words Matter

11:00 a.m. I sat in the front row as Salon Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh opened the “chairman’s” session by asking the audience: Are there ways that language can help us broaden our reach to a larger audience? To policymakers, to women, to faith-based organizations? “We always need to be checking our language,” Walsh says to a scattered audience in the Plenary Hall, which has taken on the air of a college lecture hall.

Walsh continued,

As effective as this language [at Women Deliver] is, we are still treating women primarily as mothers. Should we be talking more about her innate human rights?… A lot of people still think that this movement is all about abortion, and to a degree our movement has compromised on abortion as a result.

Walsh was joined on stage by panelists Katja Iversen, media specialist and campaign coordinator for UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund); Ana Amuchastegui from Mexico; Kathy Bushkin Calvin, CEO of the United Nations Foundation (UNF) and Ethel Klein of EDK Associates USA. All agreed that language is incredibly important in messaging and cultivating a base of support.

Walsh asked panelists what’s been successful about Women Deliver’s messages, to which Iversen answered:

I love the slogan “Invest in women, it pays.” The Women Deliver title itself is great. This kind of messaging speaks to people outside the movement.

But then Walsh brought up the issue of the wording “maternal mortality” and how it reinforces women as caretakers and does not focus enough on women’s contribution to society. And is the issue of “rights” going away from the messaging of Women Deliver?

Iversen said it’s about cultural context:

What does a woman delivering mean in this culture versus another? Yes, it reinforces women as mothers, but also puts women as investors in the economy of their country.

Calvin of UNF pointed out that a …

“… shift to a rights-based discussion is important, but not everyone responds to that as they do to an individual-rights- based discussion–i.e., having a child is my right my choice.”

This is when the conversation took a very interesting turn about how words mean different things in different cultures, and how some words do not translate at all. As Mexico’s Amuchastegui put it:

[A] rights-based discussion in [the U.S.] is very different than how it is in Latin America, for example, where we are still trying to solidify our democracies. Our people’s rights have not always been respected; we’ve suffered under long dictatorships. So while the language of rights is crucial, it does not just mean sexual rights in our countries–where we are still trying to get our individual rights, our human rights recognized. So there is a huge difference on how the concept of rights are perceived in U.S. vs globally. “Empowerment,” the word, does not even exist in Spanish.

Who knew?! This discussion exposed how the Global North still dictates not only a large part of of development policies implemented in the Global South (these are newly accepted terms for “developed” vs. “developing world”–which I cannot stand, but I will save that for another post!), but how the Global North even dictates the language that we use.

Said Iversen of UNFPA:

Yes, many people around the world are still trying to figure out what their rights are. Do you know what your human rights and are you able to access them? The American approach is “It’s your right so go get it,” and not everyone is able to do that.

Countered Walsh:

Yes, it is true, but it is a fact that some of our messaging is just not going to translate. For example, in some places contraception means empowerment, but in other cultures it doesn’t mean that and is more about reproduction. It is important to talk about these differences.

The discussion then turned back to how we create powerful messages, and Walsh made an interesting case about how the “maternal mortality world portrays women as victims, and they are really not empowering women or reaching women as actors.”

Ethel Klein added how the “victim stuff is getting old”:

When people see a problem, they want to fix it, but if it seems too big they feel hopeless. People think they are just giving charity. We have to think about the long-term; it’s very important.

–Anushay Hossain

Conversation with Jill Sheffield

11:30 a.m. I was able to speak with Jill Sheffield, founder and President of Women and Deliver, to take a look at the conference on its last day.

Ms. magazine Blog/Danielle Roderick: The conference has made a great effort to include youth. Why the decision to include youth as a key focus of Women Deliver?

Jill Sheffield: If youth is half the world, youth may not be quite  50 percent of the conference, but it’s much more than a third, it’s getting up to half … and the energy and the focus and the stories and the sheer power of it is going to move us through this. [Sheffield mentioned that there were over 6000 pplicants for the 600 scholarships the conference provides to advocates under 30.]

Ms.: What has been the biggest surprise of Women Deliver for you?

JS: We didn’t have much opposition… The blogs and so on led us to believe there might be. [Sheffield mentioned earlier that protesters had been expected.] And I think it’s because of the approach we have. [Maternal health care is] a domestic issue, it’s a global issue, and it’s broad. Women don’t deliver just babies; that’s the point. When we started this, everybody said “Oh, sure, women deliver babies…”.  We’ve grown out of that; we’ve grown up and we’ve grown beyond that. We now know women can deliver, and do deliver, almost everything.

Ms.: How does bringing together all of these advocates who agree on the importance of maternal healthcare change the conversation? What is different from June 5th when the conference started?

JS: They’re not isolated anymore, they know their resources. All kinds of information, media and money. But it’s bigger than any one person. It always makes you feel better to be part of a positive movement, and that’s what this has become. [In an earlier conversation, Sheffield noted that collaboration  had already taken place--for example, a texting service for pregnant women that was previously only used in the U.S. is now used in eight countries because of conversations at the conference.

Ms.: What do you hope attendees are thinking as they leave the conference tonight?

JS: That they can do it.  That they have to do it, and they’re going to do it.

–Danielle Roderick

Young People Deliver

8:30 a.m. Youth is the word this morning, as Ashley Judd introduces the day’s opening plenary “Young Women Deliver.”  Bemoaning the early hour, she promises this might be “the best panel  yet” and introduces the group as all “8-o’clockable” people.  I love this term, and Women Deliver, every day, has proved to be very 8-o’clockable.

The panel of young speakers does indeed deliver on inspiration, hope and all the things that we want youth to be.  Every speaker has an amazing story–the kind of amazing that makes you want to spend less time watching television and more time saving the world because it is actually possible.

There was Maihan Wali of Afghanistan, who started a girls basketball team league across her country and watched a friend die because of her involvement. There was Josh Nesbit of the U.S., who developed a text messaging service to help with heath communications, radically changing care. There was Sarah Nkhoma of Malawi, who attends a university where 1 out of 3 students is HIV-positive, including her own sister.

Each spoke of courage, innovation and the emotion that fueled their projects. A key theme seemed to be that these young people decided to act when statistics became real to them. As Nkhoma said, “You can’t afford to ignore something that happens all around you.”

–Danielle Roderick

Above photo courtesy of Women Deliver.

At Day 2 of the three-day international conference Women Deliver 2010

Want to do something to help? You can click here to urge President Obama to keep the U.S.’s promise to ensure women everywhere universal access to reproductive-health services, family planning, and basic education by 2015.

Funding, Funding, Funding!

Over 215 million women want access to contraceptives but can’t get it. The Guttmacher Institute, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, three reproductive-rights advocacy organizations, talk about what’s getting in the way.

818 million women across the globe want to limit their childbearing, according to the Guttmacher Institute, yet more than a quarter have no means to do so. Contraception is unavailable for millions of women in the developing world, and knowledge about contraception is equally limited. Young women are at greater risk due to lack of information and awareness, as well as sexual exploitation.

What’s needed is more funding to address the problem, along with a broad-based global advocacy strategy built on successful models, says Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Ironically, she says, the global reproductive health community can learn a lesson or two from opponents of family planning, who are building and strengthening their networks across the globe to deny women access to basic contraception and safe abortion. The just-passed 50th anniversary of the birth control pill should be cause for celebration, but also a somber reminder that millions of women desire the means to plan and space their families, but face barriers to that basic human right.

–Belle Taylor-McGhee

Actors for Maternal Health

I started my second day at Women Deliver 2010 by speaking with actors Rachel Leigh Cook and Ali Larter, both guests of the United Nations Foundation (UNF) and both impressively well-versed in maternal health issues.

4:25 p.m. Interview with Ali Larter:

Ms. Magazine Blog/Anushay Hossain: How did you get involved in the issue of maternal health?

Ali Larter: I’ve always cared deeply about women and girls issues, and coming here I’ve actually learned so much–I didn’t know I cared so much! I believe that there should be universal access to every woman for reproductive health care, and they should have a choice for their own family planning. I found out that over 200 million women around the world want to have access to contraceptives but don’t.

AH: How do you think your celebrity helps advocate this cause?

AL: You know it’s almost embarrassing, because I feel so lucky that I get to maybe raise some attention for it, but at the same time I am just a woman who feels a sense of responsibility to help other girls and women. Growing up in America, I have had such extraordinary opportunities, and I feel a sense of responsibility to help other girls that haven’t been as lucky as I have.

AH: What would you say is one of the most shocking statistic on maternal mortality or maternal health that has stayed with you, that haunts you?

AL: When [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-Moon opened up the conference and said, “Every woman has the right to give life without fearing [for] her own.” I just found that to be so extraordinary. And that a lot of the girls that are dying are between 14 and 18 years old. And if they don’t die during childbirth then they deal with different complications like fistula…this is a preventable problem with a dollar amount, $400, and it could change these women’s lives. One of the things I was so moved about was Melinda Gates talking about how we’re not trying to come up with a cure for a disease here. We have the cure! Let’s do it. Let’s get the money and build these hospitals and get women access to the doctors that they need.

AH: And lastly, do you identify yourself as a feminist?

AL: I do, I do. I definitely believe in women’s issues, but I am also a Mrs. and proud to be!

Here we ran out of time, so I was unable to tell her that you can be a feminist and be married–I am as well, as of two weeks ago–and you don’t need to add the “r” to “Ms”. Perhaps it’s lucky Larter was spared my lecture!

–Anushay Hossain

4:00 p.m. Interview with Rachel Leigh Cook:

Ms. magazine Blog/Anushay Hossain: How did you get involved with the issue of maternal health?

Rachel Leigh Cook: Well, I was enlightened of the fact that it was even this serious of an issue when I got invited out here to this conference by the UNF, and they’ve been amazing hosts and teachers. I am just overwhelmed and honored to be here.

Ms.: So the UNF reached out to you?

RLC: Yes. I have no idea why. I think it’s just because I haven’t been arrested recently or something! Did I say recently? I mean ever!

Ms.: Thanks for clarifying! How do you think your celebrity helps advocate for this cause?

RLC: The simple fact that you have given me some of your time I think is a statement about that. I don’t consider myself … I don’t even like the word celebrity, to be completely honest. I know how sort of falsely modest that sounds, but I don’t get stopped on the street left and right. I am lucky enough to be a working actor. But if I can use whatever amount of spotlight given to me occasionally, then I would love to use that to highlight wonderful causes like this.

Ms.: Yesterday at Arianna Huffington’s session on Women & Power, they were talking about formal and informal kinds of power, and Ashley Judd said she is an example of informal power and for some reason when she speaks people listen to her. Would you say that that is where you are coming from–you are a source of informal power?

RLC: I think I am casual Friday’s power! I think that she [Judd] might be informal power, but I don’t even consider myself on that level! [laughs]

Ms.: OK, What is the most shocking fact or statistic about maternal health that has stuck with you?

RLC: What really haunts me is that less than half a cent of every development dollar is spent on care for women and girls, or directed towards women in a positive way. The maternal death rates are staggering,  and in some places one in seven. In the session I was just in, they were saying that women from the ages of 14–and I imagine even younger–to 19 years old are twice as likely to die in childbirth. And I had no idea the statistics on child marriages; it is beyond shocking. I frankly cannot believe how in the dark I was about the fact that this is even a major issue. That’s why I am so happy that this conference is happening. I had never heard the words maternal death even put together. People need to know about this.

Ms.: What would you say the is the most important thing you have learned at this conference?

RLC: Women need access to family planning. And when you say family planning, the “A” word starts lingering in people’s minds–and it is not about that. We want to keep mothers alive, we want to keep children alive. We don’t want anyone to die in childbirth. We need to get these women the resources to save their own lives.

Ms.: Do you consider yourself a feminist?

RLC: I think that the majority of women, especially of our generation, are feminists … It just means equality. It just means to be the ultimate girl’s girl. Look out for each other, because we might not have anything in common but we face a lot of the same issues, whether we realize it or not. Have each other’s back and do this because no one else is going to.

–Anushay Hossain

2:25 p.m. Eleanor Smeal and Belle Taylor-McGhee Take the Soapbox!

Ellie Smeal, publisher of Ms. and president and founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation, took the podium at the “Speaker’s Corner.” Raising high the latest issue of Ms., she told the people crowding around her that she wanted to bring their attention to rates of women dying needlessly around the world:

The rates are out of sight. In Niger it is one in seven [women dying in childbirth]. Afghanistan now according to the latest study has moved to the worst position…a tremendous chance of women dying from pregnancy, from things that we know we can solve.

Smeal underscored that we need to invest much more money into midwives and community groups like Women’s Dignity.

Essentially the grassroots groups are still underfunded big time. We need the establishment of a health infrastructure that treats women seriously and eliminates this surge that is costing the lives of some 500 million women a year, and an additional 6-8 million women who are left with serious illnesses [related to pregnancy] that are absolutely and utterly unnecessary.

Smeal then turned the podium over to another long-time reproductive-health advocate, Belle Taylor McGhee, who is working on a three-part series for Ms. magazine on maternal health and maternal death in Africa.

McGhee passionately recounted her recent trip to Uganda and Tanzania, countries she described as beautiful with their lush, green hills. But, she said, they had almost no hospitals or health-care facilities–and the issues and the needs there are so complex they can’t be boiled down to a “one size fits all” solution. She highlighted the importance of grassroots groups such as Women’s Dignity that connect public officials with communities who will hold them accountable. Surprisingly, says McGhee, public officials do listen, but because of a lack of funds they don’t know whether to put money into maternal mortality, child mortality or HIV/AIDS: The officials themselves are torn. The bottom line? “We don’t have money,” says McGhee.

–Anushay Hossain

Vaginal rings and HIV

11:45 a.m. The International Partnership for Microbicides announced the first safety trial in Africa of a vaginal ring designed to prevent HIV. Vaginal rings have been successfully used as hormonal birth control methods, especially because they are discreet (a key word in discussions here about contraception, and forgettable (unlike the pill, which needs to be taken around the same time every day, the ring is changed once a month).  This new study brings together reproductive health and HIV prevention, possibly leading to a future vaginal ring that can offer protection from pregnancy and HIV simultaneously.

The most exciting thing about this development is that addresses the intersection between women, their sexual lives and sexually transmitted infections. The most common HIV protections are condoms or abstinence, and neither of these are acceptable choices for all women, especially a woman who desires children, is married or whose livelihood depends on sex work.

Elizabeth Mataka of Zambia National AIDS Network, said:

For a woman in Africa, to use condoms depends on the express communication and cooperation of her partner, [but with this new ring] nobody needs to know…women can have total control over its usage.

The development of the ring is also promising because of its ease of distribution and low cost—less than $5 a month.  Mataka added that the ring is also exciting because it would reduce infection rates, thus lowering treatment costs. After this safety trial, efficacy trials will take place next year, and hopefully the results will be available by 2015.

–Danielle Roderick

New Maternal-Health Research–Hot off the Presses!

12:40 a.m. Moderator Richard Horton, Editor-and-Chief of The Lancet leaves advocates with a resounding message:

We need to think about science not in its conventional meaning, but political, social and economic, ethical science. … And we need a formal mechanism to push these studies further.

11:55 a.m. Saving mothers’ lives

Anuraj Shankur of the Harvard School of Public Health shares new research:

• Higher doses of oxytocin could help prevent postpartum hemmorrhage.
• Vitamins C and E, commonly used to prevent pre-eclampsia/eclampsia,  don’t work. But calcium supplements during preconception and first trimester show promise, and magnesium sulfate aids treatment.
• Mifepristone or methotrexate and misoprostol are the best methods to avoid botched abortions–but there’s a lack of access, especially in countries where abortion is illegal.

11:39 a.m. What’s new for newborns?

“Kangaroo Mother Care”–24-hour-a-day mother-newborn skin-to-skin contact with incubating thermal care and increased breastfeeding–is one of the most effective ways of nursing preterm newborns to survival, says Joy Lawn, director of global evidence and policy for Saving Newborn Lives/Save the Children. Two recent trials of Kangaroo Mother resulted in a 51 percent reduction in neonatal mortality.

Another needed yet under-researched intervention is community-based post-natal care, which includes home visits and women’s groups.

11:10 a.m. Child and infant survival

Betty Kirkwood, Professor of Epidemiology and International Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine highlights promising new child-health interventions:

• Oral, at-home Amoxycilin effectively treats severe pneumonia.
• Early antiretroviral treatment for HIV-positive infants drastically reduces mortality.
• Antenatal iron–a relatively old intervention–has been newly shown to  increase child survival.
• Indoor residual spraying (IRS) protects children from the onset of malaria.

And a few interventions that may be on the horizon:

• Malaria vaccines
• “Lab-on-a-chip” diagnostic tools, tiny chips that can detect bacteria, viruses and cancers and even conduct DNA analysis.
• Interventions to address maternal depression and domestic violence, which increase infant/child mortality.
• Interventions to improve infant nutrition within the first 2 years of life, aiding crucial weight gain that reduces the future risk of chronic diseases

–Patrice L. Guillory

Good morning, birth control!

9:30 a.m. Nothing like a cup of coffee and a long talk about contraception to start the morning off right.  At the first plenary today, “Modern Contraception Comes of Age,” 50 years of birth control were examined. Throughout the conversation, I kept thinking of the basic sex ed found in U.S. high schools, the privilege of information and the wildness of technology.

Regine L. Struik-Ware, executive director of research and development for the Population Council mentioned that a three-month vaginal ring was available in Latin America and that a one-year ring will be available soon.   This sounds amazing.  I think, Do you ever wash it?

There was also talk of why common contraceptives aren’t used. About 50 percent of women discontinue taking the pill in the first year because of logistical problems regarding cost, access and privacy.  Ward Cates of Family Health International outlined issues and possible solutions:

• The female condom is coitally dependent (a professional word for “in the heat of the moment”). Later in the presentation, Gloria Quansah Asare of the Ghana Health Service mentioned that while the female condom is seen as empowering women, it depends on the cooperation of the male partner.
• The male condom: another coital dependent. Also, while the condom has a great deal of visibility because of HIV protection, this might be part of the problem. Use of the condom often introduces trust issues between partners.  Cates recommended that the condom be marketed as pregnancy prevention instead of STI protection.
• Diaphragm: The biggest factor here is that it requires fitting. Cates recommended a “one size fits most” model.

The talk ended with a look at the needs of young people, especially when they are having sex even though cultural attitudes insist they are not. Sitruk-Ware emphasized that young people need a method that is on demand, simple and reversible, and highlighted the development of a drug that would act like emergency contraception before “the event” (sex), a pill you could take just once to postpone ovulation. I’m hoping there are more details at the next plenary, “What’s on the Horizon.”

–Danielle Roderick

Want to do something to help? You can click here to urge President Obama to keep the U.S.’s promise to ensure women everywhere universal access to reproductive-health services, family planning, and basic education by 2015.

Above image courtesy of Women Deliver.

The three-day international conference Women Deliver 2010

Want to do something to help? You can click here to urge President Obama to keep the U.S.’s promise to ensure women everywhere universal access to reproductive-health services, family planning, and basic education by 2015.

No Woman No Cry

8:10 p.m. I am listening to Martha Wainwright’s cover of Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry as the credits roll for Christy Turlington Burns‘ documentary of the same name. The hour-long film follows several women around the world as they dealt with a striking and unfortunately common array of barriers facing women during pregnancy. Turlington Burns was inspired to make the film after her own post-partum hemorrhage.

The movie is visually compelling, and lets viewers see intimate moment,s from doctors brusquely dismissing poor pregnant women in Bangladesh to post-abortion care in Guatemala (where nobody says the word abortion). As the narrative jumps from Turlington Burn’s New York apartment to Tanzanian hospitals, we see that women from all backgrounds are affected by maternal healthcare.

Turlington Burns had been working for CARE International as a maternal advocate and said she wanted to create more interaction with these issues on a global level.  She chose to include footage from the U.S. to show how close to home these issues are.

Nan Strauss, researcher for Amnesty International, USA, who worked on the film and the Amnesty report Deadly Delivery released earlier this year, mentioned that it’s not the statistics that inspire people, as much as the stories and the proof that “they are not isolated incidents, and they are not inevitable incidents.”

Suellen Miller reiterated the importance of the connecting statistics to individual experiences, and the importance of images, names and narratives in media. She said the movie was a great tool for introducing the issue of maternal healthcare to those who were completely unfamiliar with it. Turlington Burns added she financed this film personally.

When a film hits at the right moment in time, and had the ability to engage people and be an advocacy tool [she added she didn’t want to make an advocacy video, but a film that could be a tool]…and to tell an abortion story and a transportation story, and all the others, I needed ownership for that.

--Danielle Roderick

A Closer Look at the New Statistics on Maternal Mortality

3:25 p.m. Gathering data about maternal mortality appears to be really hard. According to Christopher Murray, Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, 42 percent of possible maternal deaths don’t get classified as maternal deaths due to a lack of data.  There are 21 countries for which there is no data available at all. These countries account for about 2.2 percent of births in the world.

Dr. Ties Boerma of the World Health Organization showed several slides of the number of maternal of deaths per day in 1990 and 2005.  Large orange bars mark the number of deaths by location. The south of the world is covered; the U.S. and Europe are bare.

Boerma also emphasizes the lack of data. The top 30 countries for maternal mortality account for 90 percent of deaths, and all of these are in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.  However, only South Africa has a full registration system to register maternal deaths; all other data is gathered from household surveys, which are a much cruder tool. About 40 million people are born and unregistered every year, and 40 million die from unregistered causes. The issue of inadequate civil registrations is a major issue in addressing maternal mortality and morbidity.  “Without this data,” noted Boerma, “we may be shooting in the dark.”

When asked if it was possible to meet Millenium Development Goal 5, both Murray and Boerma said no, emphasizing the ambitious number of reducing maternal mortality by three quarters (compared to 1990) by 2015. Moderator Sharon Camp, President of the Guttmacher Institute ended by saying “That is the last word,” and then added, “I hope that both of you are wrong.”

--Danielle Roderick

Condoms and Climate Change: Can Family Planning Save the World?

3:23 p.m. Laurie Mazur, Director of Population Justice and moderator of this panel, frames the discussion within the context of the past marriages between the women’s movement and population programs: Population policies tended to trump feminist progress. Now that there’s a growing concern with global warming and population growth, environmentalists, reproductive rights advocates and population-justice workers seek to redefine and restructure demographic goals within a human rights framework.

According to Scott Moreland, principal investigator for the MEASURE Evaluation Project of the Futures Group, the cost savings of investing in the unmet family planning needs can be huge: In countries like India, an investment of $1.41 billion in family planning could lead to a savings of over $15 billion dollars. Moreland concludes that moving the dialogue of family planning and reproductive health into non-health related forms of intervention would offer additional benefits, such as reduced resource depletion, reduced costs of providing public services (education, clean water, housing and health) and reduced carbon emissions.

“Feminists scared them off!” says Frances Kissling, visiting scholar for the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. She was speaking frankly of the historical partnership among reproductive health advocates, environmentalists and population-justice workers. She added,

“Our social movements are in transition … We went from new social movements to defunct movements… But with climate change there’s an opportunity for environmentalists, population and family-planning advocates to redefine [themselves] in order to meet the unmet family-planning needs.

Katie Chau, consultant on advocacy and young people for International Planned Parenthood Federation spoke, on the sexual and reproductive health and rights-based (SRHR) approach to climate change:

“We have to look at consumption, technology, rural/urban areas in mitigating climate change and we can’t assume that fewer people will reduce climate change. We also have to look at the ethical nuance where countries that have fewer fertility rates produce greatest amounts of carbon emissions and countries with higher fertility rates have limited ability to impact the reduction of climate change.”

Chau also went on to stress the significant role young women play in uniting advocacy efforts around climate change and SRHR. “We will inherit this problem and young people make up the largest percentages in many countries around the world. We have to be at the forefront of climate change.”

–Patrice L. Guillory

CARE collaborates with UNFPA

3:10 p.m. CARE International, one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid agencies and UNFPA have signed a joint agreement to strengthen collaboration. Executive director of the UNFPA, Thoraya Obaid, and Helene D. Gayle, president and CEO of CARE International announced the partnership, highlighting CARE’s expertise working with local communities and UNFPA’s experience working with national governments. Lots of pictures, and happy people greeted the announcement. By the way, this took place at the conference’s Speaker’s Corner, which has an oversized soapbox as the speaking platform.

--Danielle Roderick

Combination HIV Prevention for Girls and Women

3 p.m. “Combination prevention [scientifically proven risk-reduction strategies such as one-on-one counseling, small-group programs and community education to encourage people to adopt safer sexual behaviors and avoid risky drug use] is more of a fantasy than a reality, and we need to do more work on making HIV prevention more holistic,” said Gertrude Khumalo-Sakutukwa from the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies at UC San Francisco. She addressed the need for more heightened awareness about male circumcision and its impact on reducing women’s vulnerability to HIV.

–Patrice L. Guillory

Women & Power Session

1:45 p.m. I am sitting front row at the Chairman’s Women and Power Session! Arianna Huffington opens by explaining her accent, audience erupts in laughter. With her on stage are Ashley Judd, Valerie Jarrett and Michele Bachalet. Huffington says:

Our job as women is to deal with power not like men, but to do it with wisdom! There have been a lot of men with high IQs, but not with wisdom. If Lehman Brothers was called Lehman Brothers & Sisters, they would still be standing!

Her humor warms up the audience and creates a very relaxed atmosphere, despite the fact that the women on the stage are so accomplished.
She recalls a story of passing out from exhaustion and breaking her chin, almost losing her right eye. The drive for success, Huffington says, is driving us to the ground and giving us heart attacks. She says she wants us to talk about sleep–her new obsession–and now makes appointments with it and never breaks them! Huffington says women, especially young women, are terrified of failure, but failure is a key part of success. She recalls how her first book was rejected by 36 publishers and she was convinced she was not a writer. Wow. There could have been a world without the Huffington Post?

Huffington introduces the first panelist, actor Ashley Judd, and asks her to talk about the difference between formal and informal power. Judd says she is an example of informal power: “For some reason, people pay attention to me even though I have never headed an organization or state.” Judd talks about the significance of listening to your emotions: “Listen to your rage, and with some tools you can do a lot with it!”

Helen Clark, head of the UNDP and former prime minister of New Zealand, is asked by Huffington what one can do with formal power? Clark recalls getting legislation passed in New Zealand which allowed midwives to practice without being supervised by a doctor. The crowd erupts in applause. Huffington recalls story how she lost her first child, had her second child with a midwife at age 40. She says she is a big proponent of midwifery and that women should not be in bed to give birth–”It’s the wrong place to be!” The audience is very warm and laughs a lot.

Panelist Michele Bachelet, the former president of Chile, is asked to tell us about her delivery experiences. She had her first child in Germany with no anesthesia, as she did with her other children. Said Bachelet:

I believe women can make a difference in politics. Power for what? I wanted to use power to make people’s lives better, happier. How can we not burn out and not have anxiety about failure? It is not easy. You can not do it wrong because you will make it harder for other women. People will say, ‘Look at this woman, she is not doing very good.

Bachelet spoke at length about how women serve as important role models for other women and for the credibility of all women. To play many roles, you need to take care of yourself, she said, and Bachelet added that she has not slept in so long she does not remember the word! Bachelet says we are great women, but not superwomen. She tells us to prioritize, because the world is not ready to give us all the support that we need.

White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett is introduced next as someone who is in the midst of power and “exemplifies power.”  Jarrett tells audience that you can do it all–just not at the same time. She says women are great at listening and nurturing others, but not themselves. She recalled her first job after law school at a large, fancy firm in Chicago, looking out over her lake view and thinking how miserable she was. Jarrett now makes a point to make room for herself, even if it’s just a quick lunch with friends. She advises the audience “to find your inner circle, find your balance…You have to demand what you need. No one is going to give it to you.”

Judd talks about how men have always built alliances and women are just starting: “Female to female alliances are essential,” Judd says.

Jarrett tells us how she was afraid of asking for a promotion even though she had been working so hard for so long. She believed her boss would give it to her when he was ready to. A colleague told her that that would not happen, and pushed her to ask for the promotion. As nervous as she was to do so, she did and got the promotion right away. Jarrett said if she hadn’t asked for that promotion, she still would be in her cubicle: “If you do not demand respect, no one will give it to you. Be resilient!”

Judd gets off from her chair and does a dance to positive energy slogans (“I can do anything!” I love my thighs!”) to inspire women to let criticism roll off their backs. Jarrett interjects, “Just like men do.”

Huffington recalls a devastating review of of the Huffington Post from the LA Weekly that she memorized. Later, the reviwer wrote her saying he was wrong and asking if he could write for her. “Don’t hold grudges,” she advises. She tells us to be more childlike–children go from crying to not even remembering what made them upset.

Huffington asks Jarrett about the White House Council on Women and Girls. Jarrett says it’s about thinking every day how to improve lives of women and girls in the U.S. and around the world. Every U.S. agency now has to give a report on what programs they have that do this. How can we make the Treasury department or the corporate world more appealing to women? Women need to be more financially literate, how can we do that? It’s all about figuring out what we can do.

–Anushay Hossain

Melinda Gates speaks

1:15 p.m. Melinda Gates just spoke to a room of hungry conference attendees. As we ate box lunches, she focused on what are developing as conference themes: the connection between family planning and empowerment, how to “scale up” successful models to improve maternal mortality, the importance of large-scale coordination and how to navigate the social and cultural intricacies of global development.  Gates emphasized that the statistics often referenced refer to human beings, asking the audience to “design our work around women and children, not around our areas of expertise.”

She went on to note that access to family planning could reduce maternal deaths by 30 percent. With the modern contraception available, she said, “Quite simply, it’s reckless to prevent women from using them.”

Gates also noted that the medical health community is not often comfortable with treating childbirth as a rite of passage or a cultural ritual instead of a medical procedure. She advocated the science of behavioral change, noting success stories where maternal mortality rates were reduced by 51 percent not because of any technology developed in a lab, but from the success of promoting skin-to-skin care (when a mother puts the baby on her chest right after delivery), exclusive breastfeeding and education about drying the umbilical cord (using knowledge based in the culture of the community). Looking at these regional successes, Gates asked how these successful models can be used globally.

She ended her speech with the announcement that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is committing $1.5 billion dollars over the next 5 years to the cause of women and children’s health. She also said she would take the issue as her personal priority, promising to continue the conversation and bring attention to maternal health. This announcement was met with loud applause, and the commendation from Dr. Fred Sai that Gates was an example of those who “give their all.”

--Danielle Roderick

Breakout Session: Maintaining the Momentum: Five Countries Share Experiences Reducing Unmet Need for Family Planning

12:18 a.m. Bocar Duff, Director of Reproductive Health at the Ministry of Health in Senegal highlights one of its greatest successes in combating maternal mortality: a Presidential initiative to (a) involve more Senegalese women leaders in addressing these issues and (b) promote investments in maternal health via private-public partnerships. A theme in three presentations has been the need for more funding.

11:55 a.m. In contrast to Indonesia, Ethiopia faces a very grim reality, with extreme high rates of pregnancy-related injuries such as fistula and a stagnantly high rate of maternal mortality, says Kesete Admassu, Director General for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Ethiopia. However, the national government has worked to institute programs like the Health Extension Program (HEP), which trains over 33,000 community health workers (98 percent women) to serve as health liaisons who provide primary care services to families in various parts of the country. HEP workers are trained to bring injectible contraception and implants to women and adolescents. (So far there’s been no mention of health, safety and hygiene concerns with regards to injectibles.)

11:39 a.m. Sugiri Syarif, Chairman of Indonesia’s national family planning board, shares a remarkable success story: Indonesia has increased contraceptive and family planning access to 81 percent. Abandoning pro-natalist policies, Indonesia mandated municipal and district governments to carry out family planning programs. This has helped to normalize small family sizes. Where would the U.S. be in terms of maternal health if we took bold steps like Indonesia to mandate, for example, comprehensive sexual education for American youth?

11:13 a.m. It was just announced that presenter Stella Simela-Chiriva, executive director of Zimbabwe’s National Family Planning Council has suddenly passed away in route to this conference. The women of Zimbabwe have lost a warrior in the fight for empowerment of women and families. Our thoughts are with her family and the communities she has served.  A moment of silence was observed.

10:00 a.m. Senior government officials from five countries–Indonesia, Ethiopia, Malawi, Senegal, and Zimbabwe–share insights into their efforts to reduce unmet contraceptive need in their settings.

Surprisingly, all the presenters on this panel are men. Though I am proud to see men engaged and working on family planning and maternal health issues, it is ironic that in these countries where maternal mortality rates are so high, no women are here to describe what the greatest challenges and successes are–particularly when it is known these countries experience huge barriers to women’s empowerment.

–Patrice L. Guillory

Opening Plenary – Christiane Amanpour

9:30 a.m. The first plenary panel begins, with Christiane Amanpour taking the stage. She says all she can think about are are the women in Afghanistan and Africa who have to travel for days on horseback or in carts just to deliver their babies. Amanpour says that the finances exist to change the situation but that there are political challenges and “gross double-standards.”

The first question to panelists is about the state of maternal mortality today, citing the recent study in the Lancet that maternal mortality rates are declining. The panel agrees that it is positive and encouraging sign but that we still need to create and maintain urgency around the issue.

–Anushay Hossain

Welcome Address: Celebrate Progress and Sustain Momentum – Ban Ki-Moon, Hillary Clinton

9:20 a.m. “Mother of Women Deliver” Jill Sheffield of Family Care International acknowledges how the election of Barack Obama heralded a new era for women and women’s health by reinstating funding for UNFPA, creating the first-ever White House Council for Women and Girls, naming an ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Affairs and making Hillary Clinton Secretary of State.

9:25 a.m. And here’s Hillary Clinton, via satellite! She congratulates the U.N. Secretary-General for promoting women and children’s health reiterates the theme that “women deliver for the world; now the world needs to deliver for women.”

9:10 a.m. Ki-Moon says that “an isolated approach does not work. When we work together we succeed.” Governments, businesses and NGOs should all be part of the picture of maternal health. He announces a new commitment from the U.N. and renews a pledge by the U.N. Joint Action Plan to accelerate programs for women and children. He also addresses the issue of violence against women:

Gender inequality is a danger to women’s health. Women cannot fulfill their potential when they live in fear, fear of rape, domestic violence and being trafficked. … Empowering women starts at home.

Ki-Moon is on a roll: He also acknowledges that women are still outnumbered by men at the U.N. at every level–and this must change! He ends his speech by recalling his own home-birth in Korea. He later asked his mother why women looked so scared before going into a room to give birth. She told him it was because they did not know if they would come out of the room alive. Concludes Ki-Moon:

No woman should have to pay for giving life with her own life. Let us change this world by helping women deliver.

9 a.m. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon takes the stage amidst thousands of flashing lightbulbs. Goosebumps! The significance of his presence is tangible; you can feel the power he is bringing to Women Deliver. He tells Michelle Bachelet that even though she is no longer president of her country, the world still needs her leadership. Then he introduces all five U.N. agency heads who are also present here today, sitting in the front row, and he acknowledges that women’s rights are central to all U.N. policies and declares that “delivering for women and children is men’s work, too.” Massive applause from the standing-room-only audience.

8:55 a.m. The “Godfather of the Women’s Health Movement” and co-chair of the conference,  Ghana’s Fred Sai, takes the stage and declares he would rather be called a “master midwife” than a godfather so that we can get “women really delivering.” He says that despite research showing that maternal mortality rates are declining globally, he has not been seeing enough progress in the field of maternal health. What’s missing? Action, education and leadership.

8:50 a.m. Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile–did you know she is also a physician?–says …

A health system that delivers for women delvers for everyone else also. My government delivered for women and women delivered for my country.

8:30 a.m. There’s an electric atmosphere in the massive ballroom of Washington’s Convention Center as 3,000 world leaders, doctors and activists gather here for the opening plenary. We watch an inspirational photo essay by Lindsay Orario and hear these words:

When women are healthy, they deliver for their families, communities and for their nations. It’s a virtuous cycle. We know what to do to save their lives. It’s time to deliver for women. Invest in women. It pays.

–Anushay Hossain (Originally posted on Ms. magazine Blog)

Above image courtesy of Women Deliver.

Feminists didn’t get everything we wanted in the historic health-insurance reform package passed in March: The lack of a public option and limits on abortion coverage were the most glaring setbacks, and a single-payer system wasn’t even considered. But bottom line, an additional 32 million Americans will gain health-care coverage—meaning that the vast majority in the U.S., some 95 percent, will be covered.

Considering the hundreds of millions spent by the health-insurance industry in federal lobbying, the intransigence of the Republican bloc in Congress and the lack of a pro-choice majority in either house, it’s a wonder that anything was achieved, let alone historic gains for millions of people, especially women.

For years, insurance companies denied discrimination against women and/or put forth bogus claims to justify it. With the passage of this reform package, the beginning of the end of health-insurance sex discrimination, in both benefits and pricing, is at hand. One attribute, for sure, of the women’s movement—we don’t take no for an answer when it comes to obtaining women’s equality. And we never give up or give in.

Here are 5 gains we can cheer:

1. The legislation essentially contains a “Title IX” for women. It states that, with a few exceptions, an individual cannot “be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any health program or activity, any part of which is receiving federal financial assistance.”

2. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “No longer will being a woman be considered a pre-existing condition.” Gender rating—charging women more than men for health insurance—is eliminated for individuals plans and for employer plans covering fewer than 100 employees. Today, in most states, women with individual plans pay as much as 48 percent higher premiums than men for the same coverage.

3. The legislation requires that insurers provide maternity coverage; currently, about 80 percent of individual insurance policies do not.

4. Companies with more than 50 employees must also provide breastfeeding mothers reasonable break time and a room to express milk.

5. The act funds support services for, and education and research on, postpartum depression.

6. … To find out the rest, you’ll need to get the new issue of Ms. on newsstands May 25—or direct to your door by becoming a Ms. Member!