The White House released a statement this afternoon calling on Congress to support its budget proposal for $8.6 billion this fiscal year - and a total of $63 billion over six years - to shape a new, comprehensive global health strategy.  The President's statement argued that, "We cannot simply confront individual preventable illnesses in isolation. The world is interconnected, and that demands an integrated approach to global health."

This initiative continues current efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria begun by the Bush Administration with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), but seeks to focus greater attention on broader global health challenges, including child and maternal health, family planning, and neglected tropical diseases

It's all about prevention and the integration of programming.  This strategy seeks to:

• Prevent millions of new HIV infections;
• Reduce mortality of mothers and children under five, saving millions of lives;
• Avert millions of unintended pregnancies; and
• Eliminate some neglected tropical diseases.

The U.S. global health investment is an important component of the national security “smart power” strategy, where the power of America’s development tools -- especially proven, cost-effective health care initiatives -- can build the capacity of government institutions and reduce the risk of conflict before it gathers strength. 

...the Administration’s funding plan can leverage support from other nations and multilateral partners so that the world can come closer to achieving the health Millennium Development Goals.  Discussions are underway with the G-8 partners on fulfilling all of the commitments.

Today is the second to last day of University Coalitions for Global Health's Global Health Week of Action, a campaign to raise awareness on a breath of global health issues and call on young people and allies to take action.

So far, we've called on universities to make the fruits of their research available in low- and middle-income countries by signing the Philadelphia Consensus Statement, demanded the creation of a transparent and sustainable U.S. global health strategy that will strengthen health systems and bolster health work forces, and contacted our members of Congress to ensure adequate funding for essential global health programs, including those addressing global HIV and AIDS.

Today's day of action zeroes in on the importance of sexual and reproductive health information and services in the field of global health, with a focus on the need to increase funding for U.S. international family planning assistance to at least $1 billion for fiscal year 2010.  In this time of economic downturn, it is imperative that the U.S. government invest in programs which will have the greatest long term benefits for worldwide health and development.

$100 million of funding for international family planning results in:

• 3.6 million more contraceptive users
• 2.1 million unintended pregnancies avoided
• 825,000 fewer abortions
• 970,000 fewer unplanned births
• 70,000 infant deaths averted
• 4,000 maternal lives saved

The protection of U.S. political, economic, and/or security interests should be seen as an added bonus to-- not the primary driving force of-- humanitarian efforts which prevent and resolve conflict, reduce poverty, protect health, and promote and defend human rights. 

Sadly, this outlandish concept that we should promote human rights because it's the right thing to do, rather than because those individuals live on, say, bountiful oil reserves, is not reflected in reality.

For the past eight years, U.S. foreign policy making has been monopolized by the Department of Defense and, for decades, U.S. policymakers have chosen to support the ideals of democracy and freedom only where it was in the interest of the United States to do so.

But, as we've been reminded many times over the last few weeks, elections do matter.  And, as in other aspects of policy making, there exists a great opportunity in this new administration and in this new congress to rethink our approaches to U.S. foreign policy. 

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When push comes to shove, if a woman wants to terminate her pregnancy but can't either access services or afford the procedure, the right afforded to her under Roe is not enough.  While having the right is still important and meaningful, for too many women-- particularly young women, immigrant women, and women of color-- this right is not experienced in practice. 

Public policies as well as social and economic barriers inhibit reproductive justice and, as advocates, we must remember looking forward that we still have a great many battles left to win.  

One issue is access.  Many states have laws regulating and restricting abortion.  38 states require an abortion to be performed by a liscensed physician in spite of the simple nature of a first trimester procedure; 43 states allow medical institutions to refuse to perform abortions; 36 states prohibit abortion after a specified gestational period, though generally with exceptions for the women's life and health; and 14 states have banned surgical intact dialation and evacuation (D&E) procedures, know in political discourse as "partial-birth" abortions, under the protection of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. 

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"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."

Found in the plurality opinion of Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which reaffirmed the central holding of Roe v. Wade (1973) and a woman's constitutional right to choose, this statement is also central to the ongoing abortion debate in this country. 

Most anti-choice activists oppose abortion on moral or religious grounds, claiming that life begins at conception and that all life is sacred.  Pro-choice activists at times revert to rebuking this claim rather that holding to the basic truth of the Roe decision.  The whole point is that it doesn't matter when life begins.  What matters is that each invididual has the right to privacy and thus to individual freedom of choice, in this case over her own body and over her own concept of life affording her the right to continue or terminate a pregnancy.  

Everyone has a different story and it is unreasonable (besides being unconstututional) to expect an entire nation to conform to one concept of what life is and should be, of what kinds of choices are acceptable and which ones aren't. 

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For the "We Are One" inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, Bishop Gene Robinson, an outspoken international gay rights leader, was invited to deliver the invocation for the festivities. 

Today, he delivered a beautiful invocation that was seemingly purposefully omitted from the television broadcast of the event and given before the President-elect was even seated on stage. 

This is a damn shame.  It was a meaningful prayer that spoke to the real sort of unity (read: not the Rick Warren kind) we need in this country moving forward.

So, for those of you not lucky enough to stand in the cold for five hours in anticipation of this shindig, here are Bishop Robinson's remarks in full of from the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire via Pam's House Blend:

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington!  The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and  warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe.  We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one.  We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe.  Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Even in the face of people doing stupid things.  In the Obamas' first interview since the election, 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft said the following to Michelle:

I know you've said that your first priority is to be mom in chief.

Michelle Obama: Yes.

You're a Harvard Law School grad yourself. And a Princeton grad. You were a high-powered executive.

How long do you give her, knocking around that big house, before she starts to want to imprint on the job of being first lady?

Mr. Obama: I think Michelle is gonna design her own role. I think she's gonna set her own path. But I here's one thing I know about Michelle she's serious when she talks about being a mom. That's why our girls are so wonderful. I'd love to take credit for it. But this is the one who deserves most of the credit. And…

Michelle Obama: Well, the thing we've learned, you know, as we've watched this campaign, is that people, women, are capable of doing more than one thing well at the same time. And I've, you know, had to juggle being mom in chief and having a career for a long time. The primary focus for the first year will be making sure that the kids make it through the transition. But there are many issues that I care deeply about. I care about military families and the work/family balance issue. I care about education. I, both Barack and I, believe that we can have an impact in the D.C. area. You know, in terms of making sure we're contributing to the community that we immediately live in. That's always been something that we try to do. Whether it's in our own neighborhoods or in the schools that we've attended. So there's plenty to do.

Seriously?

Friday in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson illuminated various issues that Obama should avoid so as to not share the same fate as Clinton.  One of these "tipwires" shockingly is abortion.  He writes:

There are at least 16 provisions passed routinely by Congress that limit governmental involvement in abortion and other life issues -- measures that prevent the domestic funding of abortion, forbid the use of international family planning funds for abortion, protect the rights of medical professionals to refuse involvement in the procedure and prohibit the patenting of human life. Removing this firewall between government and abortion would seem -- and be -- a massive assault on the pro-life movement. Even many Americans who consider themselves pro-choice see the use of their tax dollars to promote abortion as radical. By abandoning government neutrality on abortion, Obama would permanently embitter most with pro-life views.

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According to the Guardian, yesterday, MPs in the United Kingdom's House of Commons blocked debate on various abortion related issues.  One of the main reforms up for debate is the liberalization of abortion controls in Northern Ireland, where women currently need two doctors to approve that their pregnancy would damage their physical or mental health. 

Read more from Ipas:

In Northern Ireland, an abortion can only be performed after there is medical proof that the pregnancy will damage the woman’s mental or physical health. However, the legal definitions of harm are left open to interpretation, and doctors are often unwilling to perform abortions because they fear breaking the law. Currently, two doctors must approve the procedure; one of the reform proposals called for reducing this number to one.
 

Because of the legal restrictions on abortion in Ireland, many women travel to England for the procedure.