Women's clinics close as U.S. denies them funds
MOMBASA, Kenya, Miami Herald via NewsEdge Corporation : The Inca clinic has cared for Mathura Mohamed and her two children for 10 years, providing affordable prenatal checkups and pediatric and contraception services.

Now it's about to close its doors to thousands of poor Kenyan women like Mohamed, the latest casualty of a dispute between U.S. groups that are for and against legal abortion, a dispute sparked by the Bush administration's reinstatement of a ban on funding international agencies that provide abortion services.

''This is a shock,'' Mohamed, 29, said after learning that Inca would shut down in December. ``I trust this place. I can afford this. What am I going to do?''

END TO HELP

The order denies U.S. funding to foreign health-care agencies if they perform or provide counseling for abortions. Without the money, clinics such as Inca that provide broad health services cannot continue, even though Inca never performed abortions unless the woman was in danger of losing her life.

The Bush administration and groups that oppose abortion say U.S. funds should not pay for abortions overseas. The cutbacks, they say, will affect only a few organizations that refuse to comply with the order, known as the Mexico City policy after it was announced at a Mexico City conference in 1984.

''The Mexico City policy is limited only to family planning organizations that promote abortion,'' said Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman. ``Many broad-based programs are not affected.''

Since 1973, U.S. law has banned the use of federal money to pay for abortions. President Reagan signed an order in 1984 that forbade funding clinics that had anything to do with abortion. President Clinton rescinded the order in 1993. In 2001, President Bush reinstated it and extended it to various State Department programs.

Family planning advocates say the funding cuts je opardize the health of tens of thousands of poor women and children on a continent with some of the world's highest rates of infant and maternal deaths, unsafe abortions and AIDS.

African clinics such as Inca tend to be one-stop centers that also do cervical and breast-cancer screening, baby immunizations and HIV counseling. In regions hit hard by AIDS, they are often the only providers of adequate health services.

VOCAL OPPOSITION

''This is the real face of Bush's compassionate conservatism: a war on the world's most vulnerable women and children, who bear the brunt of Bush's obsession with appeasing his domestic political base,'' said Gloria Feldt, the president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Critics say the regulation will not achieve its main goal of discouraging abortion in developing nations. They say reduced access to contraception could cause more unwanted pregnancies that will end in abortions. In Kenya, where abortion is illegal except to save a woman's life, health workers fear a rise in unsafe procedures.

''This is like signing a death warrant for women,'' said Fidelis Wambui, 48, a soft-spoken head nurse at the Inca clinic, shaking her head.

Many organizations, especially Christian groups, have accepted the order and kept their U.S. funding.

But the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which helps fund the Inca clinic, and another large family-planning agency, Marie Stopes International, have refused. Between them, they operate or aid clinics in more than 180 nations. They say counseling on abortion goes hand-in-hand with comprehensive health care.

The clinic's gynecologist, George Ogutu, said most clients were treated for vaginal infections, sore throats, coughs and skin infections. .end (paragraph)<< Miami Herald -- 10/12/03, p. 22 >>

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Source : Miami Herald (USA)

Miami Herald (FL); October 12, 2003