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In response to the recent article ["A life-and-death issue," March 9], although the Population Research Institute was able to convince the Bush Administration to withdraw the $34 million approved by the Congress for the United Nations Population Fund (which does no abortions), the people of the United States are responding by the tens of thousands to an appeal made by Lois Abraham and myself.
The "34 Million Friends" campaign is now a seven-monthlong grass-roots effort, which has raised $767,000 with about $7,000 arriving per day.
I am a retired French teacher and recently have returned from a trip to Senegal and Mali to see UNFPA's work on site. I talked to women whose lives had been saved by Caesareans. I saw babies vaccinated and mothers given the means to space their next pregnancies properly.
I visited villages where the women shared that, since the joint-government UNFPA clinic had been established in their rural area, maternal mortality rates were down, and the children were being born much healthier.
The false accusation (our own State Department said as much) made by PRI about the UNFPA program in China is really hurting the poorest, most vulnerable women in the 141 other countries where UNFPA has programs. Mali, for instance, is one of the 10 poorest countries.
All people who appreciate the reproductive health care we have in this country can share a little of their good fortune with the world by sending $1 and asking their friends to do the same. Our government may not be participating in the work of the UNFPA, but we the people are.
Go to unfpa.org and click on "34 Million Friends Campaign."
Jane Roberts
Redlands, Calif.