A critically important message. I only wish that it had come accompanied with a number of links of where to donate and/or get involved.
A Mother’s Day campaign like this is long past due.
Mr. Kristoff,
Could you please follow up with some specific options for action?
Sincerely,
Elisabeth A. Mason
32
I love that photo of you with Mom!
14
We sentimentalize mothers, like dogs and kitties, but we don't respect them.
32
Let's remember, too, the urgent need for removing stigma about mental health struggles of mothers (and others). Pre- and post-partum depression and/or anxiety can be deadly and are too widespread. We need much better biopsychosocial solutions, now.
And if you are suffering, hold on, reach out, welcome help, and know that things *will* get better. You are not alone.
19
A meaningful and urgent opinion piece as usual. I have been sponsoring girls from Plan International for about 25 years and right now the girl I am sponsoring is from Cameroon. This week I received an unusal "invitation" to STOP a wedding between a 14 year old girl and a 28 year old man she has never met. This is certainly heading towards trouble! She will probably get pregnant quickly and have an unwanted and dangerous birth. I will send a donation to stop this marriage but will it help? I doubt it.
Thank you for once again shining light on this very important topic
16
Mr. Kristoff,
Have you spoken to the former supermodel Christy Turlington about her nonprofit Every Mother Counts? They are doing wonderful work.
12
President Trump and his band of incompetent and blindly-focused loyalists work very hard to take us back to the 1950's, when old white men ruled the roost and the day. The Republican Party has been pushing us to go back to what they see as those glory days for a long time.
One part of that time was that women, including mothers and non-mothers, understood that "their place" and it was not really where it is now. We have made great strides in some parts of the world to rectify this unconscionable wrong, but in many others, women can be whipped and stoned to death for not abiding by "their place."
In the United States, the Democratic Party cannot decide what it wants to be; do we want to put a white male octogenarian into the presidential battle? A gay man? A feisty, straight-talking woman? "Young or old? Progressive or Same-old?" is their dilemma on this Mother's Day and the days to follow.
Until the men of the world - and religions, I might add - come to realize that every one of them came into this world because of the strength of a woman and begin to treat women, all women, with respect, our species will not fly very high. A bird needs two wings to fly; so it is with humans.
39
@Michael
Well spoken Michael
6
There is no such thing as a safe abortion. It damages the women and kills the babies. The liberals ignore this very important fact. They do not want to hear the truth.
Why do we have to fund Planned Parenthood when their main occupation is providing abortions. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for a service many do not support. Let those who want Planned Parenthood donate their own money.
3
@KMW Planned Parenthoods' "main occupation" is not abortion. I do donate. And your tax dollars are used, mostly through Medicaid, to support services OTHER THAN (sorry for the shouting, but it appears to be necessary) abortion. Let those who want to condemn services provided via Planned Parenthood fully fund other women's health services another way and then lecture me about abortion -- especially attached to column that is fully dedicated to women's health. On Mother's Day. Sheesh!
59
@KMW
Nonsense. There are safe abortions and unsafe abortions. The majority of Planned Parenthood's services are not for abortion, but overall women's health. Like most anti-abortion fanatics, medicine and facts are irrelevant in your propaganda war on women's self-determination and health.
46
Nicholas' opinion piece is so right on, I say this as a woman, as a mother, as a retired RN. I have worked in labor and delivery and also for an OB-GYN doctor. I have seen the risks on both ends. Those who have presented with symptoms of cervical cancer as well as infants born with alcohol fetal syndrome, withdrawal symptoms and the like. I was raised Catholic, but when our daughters were teenagers I told them to come to me to get on The Pill when their time had come. Prevention in all things related to physical and psychological health is among the tenets of good medicine.
It is a horror what women in the undeveloped world have to endure. If many of us could, we would travel abroad to fight against the plight of these our sisters. What we can do is start here in our own country. What this administration is doing to women of all color, races, and ethnicities is nothing short of exploitation and abuse. We are even edging closer to the marriage of Church and State, clearly unconstitutional and clearly immoral. I know what I want for Mother's Day, but I need others..those who may or may not be moms. Let us together gift ourselves with certainty that we all will have access to affordable and unlimited health care. Happy Mother's Day, Mom! And give a kiss to Dad up there in the Great Beyond.
158
It'all about money. 700 people have gotten measles in the past few months, and legislators, media, doctors, the CDC are hyperventilating and passing laws to require everyone to be inoculated. Big money for someone!
So, a woman dying every 2 minutes from largely preventable causes, but apparently no big business loses money from their deaths. Of course, their families fall into poverty, the doctors who might help them have been de-funded by legislation and are out of work. But mostly they and their families are part of the population considered too unimportant to track and not in need of a safety net.
I'd much prefer quality health care and equal workplace laws to a box of candy or a bunch of flowers. Bet all women would! Mothers' Day for some is just another way of PRETENDING that women are appreciated in this country when the statistics show us differently. Pregnancy and female medical care is just one example.
109
@Nancy
You speak of the CDC hyperventilating about vaccines - check out the HPV vaccine touted here - for controversy - in Japan. A number of the teenage girls who were inoculated with it are having their day in court over side effects caused by it. The risk/benefit ratio is of some concern, it seems.
4
@Ellen
I was on the fence about the Gardasil vaccination for my daughter. At the time she was a bit old for the vaccine and I decided she did not need to be inoculated. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer, likely due to the HPV virus. Because of my decision, she will never be able to carry a baby to full term and I may never be a grandmother.
37
@Ellen - Research study listed in PubMed please. You give no source at all. Not acceptable.
I have just gone into the Swedish Public Health Agency where I found a detailed review of the use of HPV vaccine in Sweden and of all research studies done or in progress.
In Sweden, the vaccine is free and is given in school year 5 or 6. All Swedish citizens are followed for life thanks to the Universal Health Care System, and the total record makes it possible to study the results decade after decade. So far, the results are highly positive.
If you cannot cite scientific sources please do not bother writing such a comment or reply.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
48
I asked my husband and adult children to stop celebrating Mother's Day for me several years ago. It is a hollow holiday in the United States where working women get no paid leave to give birth, recover and bond with their newborns or to care for them when they are sick and where millions of women have no health insurance to help pay for their prenatal care and hospital delivery. In no way I can think of are American mothers paid more than lip service on Mother's Day so I want nothing to do with it.
97
@abigail49
In the US, every woman who is pregnant is entitled to Medicaid for prenatal, delivery and post natal care. Citizen, legal alien or illegal alien.
That was the case before Obamacare and continues to be the case.
The dystopia you believe you live in doesn't even exist.
4
@ebmem
You still have to qualify for Medicaid to receive these services.
25
My daughter, soon to enter med school, remarked that as soon as the topic changed from "health" to "women's health" it became both political and unimportant.
We just can't get anyone without a uterus excited about those with one; and we get tangled up in morality instead of mortality when talking about health.
Pregnancy is not safe. It is much, much safer than it ever was, at least in first world health care systems. But it can raise your blood pressure in pre-eclampsia - as it did with my roommate years ago - to 220/112, and require an emergency delivery. If the fetus is developed enough you have a preemie; if not an abortion.
Or it can cause you to hemorrhage after birth, making it imperative that you prevent pregnancy to prevent bleeding out. Abstinence is unrealistic, and birth control necessary.
Or you can suffer from post-partum depression, gestational diabetes, increases risk of stroke or aneurysm, exacerbation of underlying illness like MS or Lupus - the list is long. And that is in the first world.
Patriarchy, religious superstition, moral judgment, and an overweening lack of value for the lives of the poor kill women. And that is here in the US. Imagine the impact globally.
81
@Cathy
I hope med school doesn’t take away her intuition. I teach med students daily. And thank you for your post, well said.
9
Sadly, we don't have to go to countries far from the United States to see the effects of lack of birth control in poor people. They are in every city and state in our own country. The problem worsens as Trump and other Republicans refuse to fund programs like Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control, cervical cancer examinations and other reproductive health services to families too poor to see a private doctor.
While they claim they are pro-life, these people are simply anti-abortion. They don't care about the lives they claim they want to save. It makes far more sense to help a woman prevent pregnancy than to force her to seek an abortion because she has no other options. Or to force her to carry an unwanted pregnancy that threatens her life or that was the result of rape or incest.
We have legislatures full of old white men who know nothing about reproduction, such as the man who claimed an ectopic pregnancy should be implanted in a uterus, technology that doesn't exist. If women made the rules, things would be very different.
170
@Barbara
Forced-birthers.
15
@Barbara
All I know is that if men became pregnant, abortion would be safe, legal and free!
23
@MGH
And it would be a sacrament (thank you, Flo Kennedy).
9
Mother's Day was never about actually helping mothers. Mother's Day above all is about making men feel good about themselves by letting them feel sentimental about their mothers. Any benefit to mothers (or to women's relationships with their mothers) is incidental.
12
@Stephen Merritt actually you are wrong about Mother’s Day. Do a search on Anna Jarvis yo learn about its origins. It may be a Hallmark holiday now, but Ms. Jarvis has excellent intentions.
6
Global warming, education, mental health and gun violence are just some of the very serious problems facing all Americans. Since it will cost a lot of money to address these issues, and since this will mean raising taxes on corporations and the rich, Republicans have skillfully and cynically convinced their base that abortion is the top problem in America. Why? Because it does not cost their rich sponsors anything. Only in America.
19
Not to claim that the way women are treated is optimal anywhere on the planet (not even in the more enlightened countries of "socialist" Europe, in which unequal rights enforcement and sexual harassment are still nagging concerns), but we exacerbate things here in the US with our Calvinist/Social Darwinist mindset of "deserving"--that is, seeing only those who have made money and gathered resources as smart, worthy, and entitled to services, because they can buy them.
This has a lot of non-salutary effects on poorer women, both here in the US and abroad. Our claims to care about them, on Mothers' Day or any other, are simply the public relations ploy adapted to make us slightly less aware and ashamed of how oligarchs both large and petty exploit women in order to greedily self-aggrandize.
We could certainly take those billions we spend on Mothers' Day and put them towards programs that would help many more women on far many more days, but even that would keep money from some oligarchic pocket, so we will continue to be encouraged to buy flowers and cards and chocolate instead.
10
Women die all too often in the course of their pregnancies. Always have and always will. The main reason is that giving birth is incredibly traumatic, a trauma that billions of women experience. Nature places a burden on women that weighs on them and them alone. The pain of giving birth and the concomitant risks are an unavoidable part of motherhood. And for the most part it is simply a mother’s lot in life.
Men who blame the trauma of birth on Trump or abortion policy or birth control policy are focusing on the politics of birth. It apparently is too much for them to admit that, when it comes to bringing children into the world, 99% of the burden is on women. Guys are mostly beside the point. And 99.9% of women who die in birth die either because of tragic circumstances or abject poverty.
Politics can’t tame nature and has failed to eliminate poverty. I don’t know how many mother’s lives could be saved by Kristofian liberalism. But I am quite certain that is a bad idea to treat the deaths of too many mothers as a political football. It distracts attention from the real burden on mothers and suggests that the key to maternal health is the decisions made by men in smoke-filled rooms.
4
@michjas
Respectfully, you are completely and absolutely wrong. Women "always have and always will" die from pregnancy?? The risks of pregnancy are "unavoidable"?? No, that is not true.
You would like us to passively accept women's deaths as natural and inevitable. No, I will not. Not when a few dollars and a few decisions made by powerful men could save them. Kristof is right.
21
Nicholas, two reports, one from far off Somalia, the other from far off America, both set in a context from Sweden, close up.
Somalia part 1: A few years ago you had the first in a series of pre-Christmas columns in which you suggested that many of us readers really did not need Christmas presents nor did perhaps our grown children. You recommended giving to Edna Adan, founder of the Women's Hospital in Hargesia and later to Hawa Abdi, MD in Mogadishu. I have given regularly ever since, several times a year, often in the name of one of my many Somali friends here and in US and gave a few days ago in the name of a Somali mother in MN.
Somalia part 2: Sweden has a large Somali population in relation to size, 10 million. Somali mothers to be enter Universal Health Care at gestational week 12, essentially free, just as all other women do and get pre, peri, and post-natal care of the highest quality. Child subsidies also. The ob-gyn researchers I work for think it likely that these women do almost as well as the general population - think because no full study has been done. Given what we know about infant and maternal mortality among so-called black mothers in the US, the Swedish system should be the model for a future US system. (So-called because no Somali female I know sees herself as "black").
So on Mothers Day, prepare to vote for the Democratic Party candidate who as concerns medical care wants to "make America Sweden".
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
10
Sadly we have never viewed maternity in its proper place. Perhaps only Catholicism lifts at least one woman to her rightful place, Mary, mother of Jesus.
Because men still basically rule the world with hubris and machismo, depending on which culture we are speaking about, we men have forgotten who carried us, who nursed us, who has nearly always been there when the world was beating us down, and who we therefore should place above all people, even us men.I have always wondered what our world would be like should more women run nations.
8
I have given generously to the Fistula Foundation for about 15 years. My donations have enabled them to operate on 22 women who were treated like lepers because of their smelly childbirth injuries. After surgery, these women could lead normal lives again.
Redeeming the life of an innocent woman is a marvelous use of charity money. So many of these women were pushed into sexual activity far too young----
10
@Caroline P.
So glad you mentioned the Fistula Foundation - I also donate to it as a result of one of Mr. Kristoff's columns.
They do wonderful work and should get more publicity.
Sadly, there is so much more to be done to help women world wide. The Trump administration is exceptionally mean - spirited when it comes to women and their health.
8
foreign abortion providers as well as American abortion providers made a conscious choice to stop providing all services if they were not permitted to provide abortions, as is the law for American funded health services.
It's great to blame Trump for following the law, but why didn't the Democrat Congress change the law in 2009 or 2010 instead of Obama deciding to just ignore federal law?
Democrats do not respect the rule of law. They don't like to vote for laws, they prefer to have an autocrat do whatever suits his fancy.
1
Nicholas, I so love the spirit of your columns. You don't waste a single one, they all go to issues that desperately need attention. It's very touching to see the photo of you and your mother at the end. But why do more women die in the US during child birth than in Canada? It's quite insidious that at the very time when right wing administrations are trying to end abortions, they are also cutting back access to birth control. There's a tendency to want to treat women like breeding stock, and yet not take adequate care of the pregnancies.
11
@Anne Sherrod
Or the children after they are born.
7
Bravo. In these frightening times in America we need to see the global reach of the Anti-Woman president and just how far reaching these anti-woman of this administration are. Women are in charge of our bodies not a government.
4
These problems are generally well recognized within the health care community: https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2682682/women-s-health-policy-united-states-american-college-physicians-position ("Women's Health Policy in the United States: An American College of Physicians Position Paper ," 19 June 2018).
Getting Congress to react to any of these problems is a chore. From the summary of that position paper:
"...Women face unique health challenges across their lifespans in addition to their roles in maintaining healthy families and meeting the health care needs of children and seriously ill family members. Ensuring access to nondiscriminatory health care coverage, ensuring access to a broad range of evidence-based services for reproductive health care, supporting public policies that positively affect women and their families, and closing knowledge gaps are essential to improving the overall health and well-being of women in the United States."
Mothers' Day is not the only time we should be paying attention. No doubt Mr. Kristof's support is appreciated.
8
Mothers Day is a capitalism hype. If we actually cared about women in the world the government wouldn’t be imposing medical restrictions on women, the high mortality rate in child birth, schools ,prisons would have sanitary napkins, rape kits would be tested vs put on police shelves, domestic abuse victims wouldn’t be afraid to come forward but they fear for there lives. There would be no need for a “me to movement” etc. if we lived in a fair society however
We live in a Madison Avenue culture reality doesn’t matter . magazines cover over the ugly reality of the treatment that women receive in the United States and a hundred times worst in the rest of the world.
We must do better otherwise we are a lost culture and we will never live the lives we should. Women are victims and that is no joke.
4
Millions of people believe that life begins with fertilization. How silly. Life obviously doesn’t begin until the fetus is outside the mother’s body. Life begins when I say it begins. Me and those who agree with me are in charge.
2
@michjas
Pre-1960, Churches used to believe that life begins when God breathes the breath of life in them.
That was before Ultrasounds. Too bad they changed their minds.
3
Actually, Nicholas, US funds do go for abortion. Not directly, but if the funds weren't there, they would have to cut back on something. So, our funds do enable abortions.
My view is not a popular one but I am strongly against abortion on demand and all FOR provision of free birth control. Here are some very uncomfortable facts.
Since 1973, Americans have aborted over 60 million conceived babies. Statistically, that means we have killed over 1200 genius level people (IQ over 160). What might they have contributed to mankind---being born in the richest country on the planet? We have also killed tens of thousands of people with IQ's between 130 and 160. Same question. Genius and exceptional smarts are precious and we are squandering our future.
Next, because of abortions and other societal issues, the current US Total Fertility Rate is 1.7 and that eventually leads to collapse of the civilization. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/10/health/us-fertility-rate-replacement-cdc-study/index.html See also "How Civilizations Die" by David Goldman. Canada is 1.6, the EU is 1.6. Russia is 1.6 and sinking. Japan, 1.4. South Korea 1.2. The two latter countries are doomed in less than a century unless their fertility changes.
So, the world has a long-term problem which your plea would help but not solve. Self-centered modernity will end up destroying modern mankind. Will we wake up?
1
@Paul
I get your point, but do you know what happens to a "genius level" child who is born into an impoverished or neglectful home? They don't become world-class scientists, or skilled surgeons, or presidents. They don't fulfill the promise that you imagine. There are little children all over our country right now who will not reach their potential because they were born to mothers who weren't prepared to raise them, or who did not want them. So preventing abortions does not bring the results you would wish; it fact it is counterproductive.
17
@Paul We have also aborted 1500 serial killers, 25,000 embezzlers, 100,000 petty thieves, and the guy who would have taken your parking spot last Tuesday. How do I know this? Using the same methodology you do which cannot be properly described in a family-friendly newspaper. Let’s just say that it involves pulling nonsensical numbers from places where numbers don’t belong. The world has a serious overpopulation problem. The fact that population is shrinking in, say, Russia says nothing about the overall population growth in the world. Humanity is in no danger of extinction - as opposed to a million other species. And civilization is doing just fine, now that women in many countries are no longer reduced to brood mares and can contribute their skills and intellect to society.
12
Why we need more women in Congress, in the courts, and in the White House. These issues seem to be invisible to the majority of men, and they're what women deal with every day.
6
Just like Mother's Day was coopted, going from an antiwar observance to another day to spend, Nicholas Kristof continues to peddle the notion that he is some kind of conscience of the world, championing things that should be obvious while calling Canada's meddling in Venezuela evidence of its moral leadership and ignoring its treatment of water defenders. Go ahead: rest his articles, but know that there are real commentators out there.
Yokadouma, Cameroon where the indifferent nurse said, chalked it up to God's will, is a Roman Catholic region of the country. It's surpising to hear of such callousness coming from someone working as a nurse and presumably as a Catholic.
Apparently lost on some is the Gospels message of love your neighbor, care for the sick, the poor and the repressed.
If the message was just que sera sera, "whatever will be will be," because thats what God decided, then who needs relgion.
6
Thank you for the mention of HPV vaccine and cervical cancer, please add that there is also a relation to some head and neck cancers and anal cancer. Also horrific ways to die and will be wiped out once all pre teens are immunized. So anyone in charge of health care spending, the HPV infection you help prevent may save one of your sons from tonsil cancer.
8
Infuriating. All males born should have vasectomies at as early an age possible. Then, if and when a female decides she wants to start a family, her partner can pay for a reversal. It is no accident that as women's reproductive health rights are being trampled, more and more men's sexual aids and meds are being created and advertised. Ladies, just say no.
6
Women around the world are dying from lack of basic prenatal care.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the mommy wars continue to rage over whether you can have a cup of tea when you’re pregnant.
6
Motherhood shouldn’t be martyrdom. How about if everyone showed deep care and respect for all the women, on whom so many depend for nurturing? It goes both ways.
2
Yes. This mother agrees!
2
Its not Trump who is waging war on all things women, its Religious Conservatives, who control all social aspects of the Republican Party who is the culprit. Birth Control offers the chance for women to have sex without the huge risks otherwise intendant, and of course they are openly at war with abortion availability. Trump is just their patsy. He ceases delivering their agenda and he is impeached and convicted in a matter of weeks, making room for President Pence who is with them heart and soul.
5
Just plain old thank you. (and please keep writing)
8
Thank you, Nicholas Kristof.
6
No women's lives are less valued than dark -skinned women in America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe.
No children's lives are less valued than their dark-skinned progeny.
4
@Blackmamba-If you read some of my comments here you will see that as far as we know, dark-skinned women, specifically born in Somalia or born in Sweden to mothers from Somali are given the same pre, peri, and post natal care in Sweden as all other women.
As far as we know since no one has done a full fledged study although ob-gyn researchers I maintain contact with have wondered if one could be done.
What I have proposed here in comments many times is that a US SE research team do a study comparing that ethnic group here in Sweden with the same in, for example, Minnesota.
I have known quite a few mothers who came here from the Horn of Africa, and all those I know well have children born in Sweden who have almost certainly been given much better care and support from gestational week 12 on to 2 y post birth. Researchers whom I used to maintain contact with who did major studies of Horn of Africa women could,not surprisingly, report cases where there may have been not-quite-equal treatment.
As always, only high-quality studies could evaluate how nearly true what I sugges here is.
Larry L.
3
Call out the ignorant Republicans in our congress!
4
“ Gods Will “. Funny how “ God “ allows women and children to suffer and Die, but somehow Men get treatment and the Rich always do. Less God, more money and treatments.
Period.
14
Please, please do not ever allow our government to force girls and women to remain pregnant against their will. When that happens we might as well be living under the Taliban! Keep the government out of this decision!
12
The global statistics on maternal health are heartbreaking. The US statistics shock the conscience.
We are the richest, most powerful country on the planet and twice as many women die in pregnancy and childbirth here as in Canada? And elsewhere we read that healthcare in the US costs twice as much as in other first world countries with outcomes only half as good?
And so what are Trump and the GOP doing about it? Making abortions virtually impossible, thus setting even greater numbers of women up to die in pregnancy or childbirth or by back alley or self-administered abortion. Making contraception and gynecological care more expensive and/or out of reasonable geographic reach for many women, especially poorer ones whose risks are already often greater, thus condemning even more women to die in pregnancy or childbirth or from botched abortion or gynecological cancers or complications. Continuing to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act without replacement, leaving 20 million Americans, at least half of whom are women, without any healthcare at all, a move that would by definition condemn even more American women to die for lack of maternal and gynecological care.
And the even greater shock to the conscience is that are doing it all in the name of “morality” and “religious rights,” in the name of “freedom.”
10
If abortion were the real issue, Planned Parenthood (consider the name ) would be fully funded. The issue is contraception and the planning of parenthood. Some people of all political parties and many religions believe that women should have no say in the matter.
Two questions: why is it important to some men to exercise such control? and why are so many women complicit in allowing it? I am convinced that if put to vote, people would overwhelmingly be on the side of access to women's and men's reproductive healthcare and safe, legal abortion. The usual answer to hard questions is 'follow the money,' but it doesn't seem to apply here as we know that reproductive choices empower women and their families to improve their economic situations. Who wouldn't want that? Never mind, I got it...
10
The greatest Mother's Day gift would be to celebrate life of the unborn and born that a mother has beautifully and unselfishly delivered. Without babies and children, there would never be a Mother's Day celebration. We need to stop performing abortions on the most vulnerable among us. Life is precious and the mother is to be cherished along with her children in and out of the womb.
1
Between 8% and 11% of maternal deaths globally are due to complications of unsafely-performed abortions. This translates to an estimated 22,800 and 31,000 adolescents and women who die needlessly each year (The Guttmacher Institute). These preventable deaths represent an untold tragedy for women, their families and their communities.
The proven solutions are straightforward and feasible:
--Universal access to effective contraception
--Laws that permit safe abortion for a wide range of indications
--Widespread access to safe abortion care and postabortion care
--Comprehensive sexuality education
Will we value women's lives?
18
So important! Let's not forget that female genital mutilation is a major contributor to obstructed labor and therefore fistulas, hemmoraghing, still births and birth defects in many parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Helping communities eliminate FGM needs to be part of a comprehensive approach to reducing maternal morbidity and mortality.
13
Thank you for this article and esp for sharing this lovely pic with your mom.
It is beyond comprehension that the richest and most powerfull country in the world treats its women in this way preventing them from having access to the full health and reproductive care. Its not only the female population, its the future of the country that's at stake!
In this country, and most of the EU, women are entitled to an extended - and paid -maternity leave to be shared with their husbands or partners as well as full coverage for mother and baby. Mr Trump, try this and make America great (again)!
10
@ves all those percs come with a price. People LOVE to point to all those European frills....want the European taxes? easily 505 and more in some countries.
Also, a lot of deaths come right down to individual choice. We have ER docs in the family, and they will tell you, poor people are terrible at following directions. They come in for free treatment, they get meds, they get help, they get support, they get a nurse visiting them twice a week....but they dont do what they are supposed to. They continue to drink. To smoke. To do drugs. To eat wrong. To have unprotected sex. Frequently, with NOT the father. To Not eat right. To Not exercise. My God, no one does more for women in the world than this country, but if you refuse to make the right choices because you dont feel like it, then whose fault is it?
1
The story you wrote about of a hospital staff actually sitting on a pregnant woman's belly while she was in labor will never leave me. As an American woman living in the Netherlands I gave birth 3 times at home, with no medical intervention and drank champagne in bed cuddling my healthy babies while dula 's surrounded me and took care of us both. I would wish this for everyone. It did not cost me a penny (already covered in taxes). It is so painful to imagine that this is exceptional, knowing how painful labor is... thank you for continually opening our eyes and forcing us out of our indifference. This is the best gift I will get for Mother's Day.
22
Edna Adan Hospital, long recommended by Nicholas Kristof, has just received my donation to cover one normal birth at that hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland (Northern Somalia). I report this because I wrote in my first submitted comment, not yet in print, that I would do this as I have done many times before.
The donation is to celebrate the mothers of my so-far three great grandchildren, and the experience of becoming a great grandfather, something I never imagined in my many lives, now in So-Called Life Number 14.
Edna Adan created a hospital for women and at that hospital she established a program to train midwives who could go out into the countryside to help Somali mothers give birth. I also have supported Dr. Hawa Abdi in Mogadishu and end with this anecdote.
At the Red Cross in Linköping, SE, where I have been a volunteer for many years I actually met a young woman closely related to Hawa Abdi, and on another occasion a young man who had actually worked in Hargeisa in building Edna Adan's Hospital.
These experiences are what Sweden has given me, among the best in my entire life.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
27
@Larry Lundgren
Thank you for your suggestion and for your gifts for women. I will seek this out myself.
2
The way we treat our most vulnerable is the true test of a civilized society. Our nation's scores in this regard, including supporting and protecting the lives of mothers and their children, have fallen apace. Thank you, Mr. Kristof, for continuing to shine your light in some of our darkest corners.
29
The best Mothers Day gift we could get, is easy access to contraception and abortion. Add to that paid maternal leave, pre-and post partum medical care, affordable quality child care, education for girls and women around the world, equal participation in decision making, and on and on. Oh, and guys who didn't make these things so hard for us to access.
84
@Entera - This is exactly what I write in one of my submissions in which I compare the pre, peri, and post-natal care given every Somali-born mother to be here in Sweden with the sorrowful record of women seen as black in America.
In Sweden, 99% of all pregnant women enter the pre, peri, and post-natal care system, essentially free, at or soon after gestational week 12. The Somali Walaalo (Somali sisters) do very well here, and many of them and even the grown up children of some I have known are now nurses in Swedish UHC.
Their education here at Linköping University Medical School was free.
Time for America to get there.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
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Thank you Mr Kristof for your advocacy on behalf of the mother and future mother. If the Republicans and other conservatives in the world would spend only 50% to do policies to help those women by funding pre-natal and post natal care, assuring access to contraception not only they will insure that less women died in delivering birth but also they will reduced abortion.
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Thank you so much for advocating for mothers and women all over the world, and for inspiring us all to give more of ourselves to each other. Your call to action helps me do something with all the passion and concern I feel for the well-being of women. Thank you, NK and to your mother for raising such a woke man and to all the women in your life who inspire you to mobilize others!
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Thank you for this column, Mr. Kristof! The level of death caused by people who claim to be Pro-life is astounding.
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@Michael. PERFECT response!!!
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To me the key word in this article was “indifference”
Indifference is the greatest scourge in the world. Everything is solvable if it were not for indifference
It is the indifference of Trump’s voters who even today who still support him while his harsh “solutions” are so devastating to the poor, foreign and domestic.
It is truly mind boggling how the majority of white women support the most anti-woman president in memory.
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@Blue. Yep, you've got that right. No surprise that the most self-absorbed clown on the planet attracts voters who mirror his boundless arrogance and stupidity.
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@Blue................I believe that the women who support Trump suffer from the famous Stockholm syndrome, a mental disease.
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I can always count on Nicholas to bring to light situations we so easily ignore. My mother died at 101 5 months ago and I’m sure she would have been delighted to know I just donated the money I would have spent on flowers.
Now if we could just stop going backwards in our own country.
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My good mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany.
Her elderly parents and younger brother perished in Auschwitz.
In America, she and my father opened a small candy store and worked hard six days a week.
She was always the first in our house to get up in the morning and the last to go to bed.
Her house was spotless. She ironed shirts, darned socks, replaced buttons, scrubbed pots and pans, did the grocery shopping, went to PTA meetings and looked after my father and and me whenever we needed looking after, which was all the time.
She tended my father and grandmother lovingly during their declines.
She prayed three times a day and more on the High Holidays.
On Sunday nights after my homework was done, she would tuck me in bed, and listen to The Lone Ranger, The Shadow and Jack Benny with me.
She taught me the Shema.
She used to send off for the little toys the cereal companies would offer for a quarter.
She loved my wife and children when they came along.
She was in the habit of mailing off small contributions to dozens of charities in the U.S. and Israel in memory of her parents and brother.
She never blamed me for not living up to all the hopes and dreams she had for me, though it would have been justified.
Were she still here, she would be actively working against Trump.
There have been days since 1998 when she passed away that I have forgotten to say a prayer for her, but there have not been many.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you. Thank you for everything.
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@A. Stanton Lovely!
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@A. Stanton
Lovely tribute to your Mother.
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@A. Stanton: Exquisite. No other word will do.
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l am a 84 year old man, l raised my son and my daughter by myself, their mother left them when we got divorce, they both have their education, and marriages adn kids, than her mother showed up, how much l try can not be a mother, so l am happy that she is in their life, l lost my mother very young, so l do not have any feelings about those things, l just do my job as a parent
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Well written and at time when we seem to be rowing eagerly backward toward the past right on point. We all know by now that the whole premise of "Make America Great Again"is all about putting women back in their place and bringing back white male privilege to post WW II America.
The real campaign slogan for 2020 should be "Make America Safe At Last." The whole zero sum game being played out by the POTUS and the GOP belongs in 1950 not 2020. The revolution in U.S. policy thinking should begin with greater investment in healthcare, daycare and education. Enough with defense overspending and feed the military industrial complex beast.
I was reminded of something by that wonderful picture of Mr. Kristof and his Mum. Like at lot of our amazing mothers who fought for basic human rights and are no longer with us, our mothers would be down right appalled and angry at what little progress we have made in making America a better and safer place for both women and men in the USA and around the globe.
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Done. My 92 year old mother appreciates this gift much more than the flowers I usually send. I appreciate the information.
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Thank you for your article and for the data you present.
Women in America should be made aware that pregnancy in this day and age is no different than being pregnant in the Middle Ages! My dream would be to see billboards throughout the country spelling these simple facts.
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"Americans are expected to spend $25 billion this Mother's Day on flowers, earrings and meals."
If we can't count on our own government to help with these health issues, then we better make more of an effort with private funding. If each of us in the US contributed $100 ($2 a week over a year), we could raise $35 billion. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen.
Or maybe we could put a big-money donor's name on the initiative (e.g., Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos)? Jeff Bezos, for example, invests more than $1 billion each year in his Blue Origins projects. Earth is the only home we will ever have. Where are we going in such a rush? Why not work more to take care of one another, first?
Alternatively, we could all work with vigor to elect a Democratic president next year. That might get the job done. How about it?
50
Thank you, Nick. It is sad to say that women are second class citizens in our own country, but true. And, I believe women are in part to blame. They allow men to control every aspect of their lives. Men are not good to women, but women aren't either. I hope and pray it will improve. Thank you again.
44
And your 'best' Article ever Nicholas. You are a credit to your Mum. Such a melange of wisdom and heart and all so, so well balanced. Please thank your Mum for me.
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“The Trump administration and its allies in Congress have sought by virtually every means possible to slash government support for contraception.” This makes no sense. Women want birth control but can’t get it. When they get pregnant too many are dying due to our rotten healthcare system.
Trump has cut funding for international programs that provide for family planning and cervical cancer screening so he is also undermining the lives of women overseas. More than 200 million women worldwide don’t want to get pregnant but can’t get birth control.
Congress and our unfit president are destroying women’s lives.There is no end to the grief that out of touch old white men can cause.
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The article and the comments are all on point and most appropriate, but all of them gave me this thought:
If every woman could find her strength and refuse to have sex until our politicians passed universal, free birth control access and free womens health clinics that would be able to perform all tests and offer abortion when needed, these ignorant and pompous men might relent in their determination to make women suffer needlessly, as well as those children born to suffer with them.
No woman is forced to have an abortion, and those who do need to have one should not be treated as mentally unable to make their own life choices.
Perhaps a law requiring every man to have a Vasectomy and not permit insurance to pay for Viagra Rxs, or EDF Rxs would be of great benefit to changing the minds of these men in power now.
We definitely need more smart, strong and vocal women in our Congress to push back a lot on this issue. How dare men tell women what they must endure, and give them no chance to vote on these issues.
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@Joan - Unfortunately, many women do not have the choice of saying "No" because the man, whoever he is to her, is stronger and has his way by brute force.
Fortunately, not all men are like that. Some men are strong allies supporting women in their fight for health and life saving government policies and law.
Sadly, some women don't support women who are working to make this world a better place for everyone.
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@Joan. I might venture to guess that Melania cut 45 off ages ago. I would have...
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Is there somebody out there who does not understand that the best way to prevent abortion is by educating women and men about how to avoid pregnancy in the first place? Reproduction education. Contraception education. Trump are you listening?
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@On the Other Hand,
It is most unlikely that Trump is listening, and at best he might care in a detached way for a 3- minute span. Planned Parenthood is regarded as a liberal fabrication, and the Democrats are labeled 'The Abortion Party'.
This American's thoughts are with Our Children at The Border, standing behind barbed wire, some who may never be able to celebrate Mother's Day.
10
If governments around the world worked of the people, by the people and FOR the people (all the people and just all of one kind), then there would be no need for charity of any kind. (especially the kind that has religious catches that come with it - especially still in relation to women and their control of their own bodies)
Having said all that, health care is a human right, just as much as education is, as freedoms are, as human rights are, as breathing air is. We just have to prioritize them.
Of course that is the tricky part, but as you pointed out in the article, there are billions spent on flowers and the like to celebrate mothers on this day.
We can certainly do both in treating these mothers (women) as the queens that they are, but also doing more and making people aware that we are contradicting ourselves.
As me mum always used to say ...
17
"Historically, neither Democrats nor Republicans have been great on global women’s health. But Trump and his congressional allies have been particularly harsh, slashing programs that provide family planning or cervical cancer prevention... "
And that's not to mention creating a climate here for such insane anti-abortion legislation as demands that eggs from ectopic pregnancies be saved and re-implanted in the uterus, showing extremist ignorance of science and female pain levels.
In some parts of Africa, women undergo genital mutilation. Around the globe women's lives are valued less then men's, seemingly only prized when a man feels an urge.
But as long as we're discussing Mother's Day, what about the prize of all GOP hypocrisies and psychic cruelties, proposed laws to criminalize miscarriages-- acts of nature a woman can't control?
In some southern states, women happily planning the birth of a child unfortunate enough to suffer miscarriage could soon end up in jail, compounding grief with injustice.
Happy Mothers' Day indeed.
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@ChristineMcM - As concerns FGM, Sweden has a large Somali-born population, and a Swedish research team that I used to maintain contact with has been studying that population for years.
The head of that team, Professor Essén, wrote to me two years ago to tell me that Swedish ob-gyn manages quite well with FGM women and other ob-gyn researchers for whom I work believe that thanks to the pre, peri, and post-natal care system entered by ALL women, essentially free, Somali women do very well, enormously better than in Somalia and very likely much better than women classified as "black" in America.
I know one Somali mother here in Linköping who has given birth to 8 children here, and the 4 of the 8 I know are all nurses!
There is an important African women's clinic at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Cambridge MA where genital surgery is done on the women in the group 90% of whom have had FGM. I have not kept up with the work of Dr. Nour there so will try to catch up on American Mother's Day.
The phrase classified as black is used because I have met many 100s of Somali females at the Red Cross and every once in a while - in the past - one would point out that Somalis are not "black" and certainly do not belong to a race other than human.
Happy Mothers Day - Good reminder for me who now has 3 great grandchildren in America - will tell them I am contributing to Edna Adan Hospital in the 2 mothers' names.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
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Another Excellent article by Nicholas Kristof. His point about the amount of money spent on flowers, cards and dinners is right on. I truly don’t understand why contraception is still considered to be against many religious and political beliefs. After any of these children are born into poverty and ignorance, I never hear of anyone caring about their health and welfare anymore. Do we have to wait another century or two to lift ourselves out of the obsession with telling women what to do with their lives?
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@Louise I like flowers, cards and dinners.
One simply has to wonder about conservatives' angst regarding birth control and abortion and reproductive rights in general. But when it comes to common-sense policies about prolonging mom's health--and her unborn child--an issue with which they have a great political investment (until that child is born), they are noticeably silent about the matter. Cervical cancer? God's will, they will sanctimoniously mutter, all the while silently thanking their Creator "at least it's not me."
This grave issue of a woman's personal health naturally segues into the equally-important imperative of health care. The Right brand something that benefits everyone (or mostly everyone) a Communist or a Socialist in bald, blatant attempts to shame and out people about matters of reproduction and sex. Motherhood should be one of life's greatest joys. Let's not take for granted that every pregnancy is healthy and immune to sudden turns for the worse. As the author writes, non-white women are more likely to become statistics of fatalities during (or after) pregnancy. Health care for them will never be more urgent. Are you listening, evangelical "Christians?"
America is blessed with thousands of terrific hospitals and medical professionals but not with terrific politicians. They always find a way to squeeze ideology into the most intimate reaches of a woman's body.
Or are they really telling us some mothers (and mothers-to-be) are more important than others? Same for the unborn, Mr. President?
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18,
This president would not understand what this is about, and would call it 'Women's Business' here at home let alone on a global basis.
A beautiful French Ethiopian acquaintance, working in the humanitarian community for children based in New York, was expecting her first, and regardless of gender, her happiness impacted on all of us.
She died unexpectedly one evening in the spring, after going to the doctor because something did not feel right, and we were filled with grief when the news flashed across our office screen.
I happened to be working in the corporate world at the time; a mutual friend from Austria called in, and we all gathered around the mother of our lost friend. It was to become our loss.
There is nothing so beautiful as a happy expectant mother, and on occasion I look at a photo of fairer times, where our host from Jerusalem is smiling, in good company with Ethiopia, Somalia and Jamaica, his arm around America, who will remain childless.
Let us leave the president in his nursery. Somewhere along the path to adulthood, he ceased to grow and it happens. A boy of ten was waiting in line at the post office; an elderly man with wry wisdom turned and looked into my eyes 'I am younger than he is', and 'so you are', I replied, 'you have reached The Age of Reason'.
To my friend from Africa, to my American neighbor and to all Mothers on this Day, 'Mister Archie and I', join in thanking you for the Gift of Life.
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@Miss Ley: Thank you for your reply. It was not easy to read and, as I went through it, I was attacked by a simmering anger at the indifference of and injustice to women who are summoned to early graves because there is little or no help for them until it is too late. I agree with you about the toddler-in-chief; but he is surrounded by like-minded, soulless sycophants whose only--it seems--raison d'être--is the continuing deprivation of the health services needed for expectant mothers. There is no need for this in America.
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@Miss Ley - Greetings Miss Ley. Just after filing the 3d or 4th comment here, the one in which I report that my contribution to Edna Adan Hospital in Somaliland had gone through, made in the name of the mothers of my so-far 3 great grandchildren, I started reading all 33 comments and lo and behold there I learned that you too had a link to the Horn of Africa, so I wish you and Red Sox, whom I follow closely thanks to my childhood in Fenway Park the very best possible Mothers Day in America.
Larry L.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
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