Mothers and infants in the developing world face many challenges to their health and often lack the luxuries we come to take for granted here in North America.

World Vision Canada points out that 8.8 million children die each year from easily preventable circumstances that cost mere cents to rectify.

At the G-8 Leaders’ Summit in Huntsville, Ontario this coming June, Canada plans to champion an initiative to promote healthy pregnancies, healthy mothers and healthy children throughout the world.

Action will be taken by both Canada and the United States to introduce effective programs that encourage mothers and their children to survive and thrive in their environments.

These programs will involve a wide range of interventions across the continuum of care.

Training and support for frontline health workers, better nutrition, treatment and prevention of diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and sepsis, screening and treatment for HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, proper medication, family planning resources, immunization, and clean water and sanitation will all be addressed by the planned initiatives.

We agree with the World Health Organization that family planning that allows a woman to space and limit her pregnancies has a direct impact on her health and well-being, as well as on the outcome of each pregnancy.

However, this government remains committed to protecting the rights of all human beings from conception to natural death.
Opposition parties tried to encourage us to fund abortion as part of this commitment to maternal and infant health across the globe.

Bob Rae, the Liberal foreign affairs critic, tabled a motion to include the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options, and by implication including contraception and abortion, amongst Canada’s maternal and child health initiatives for the poorest regions of the world.

This motion was defeated in the House of Commons by a vote of 144-138.

Canada will be focusing on interventions that have been proven to be most effective in saving the lives of women and children on an international scale as we move forward in our commitment to ensuring all children, regardless of where they are born, have access to the highest quality of life possible.

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