Ch.8 Family planning and the "god gulf"/ Jane Roberts and her 34 million friends

We started off looking at "God gulf" and it's presence in the American political system. Presidents have a number of policies that they, themselves decide to keep, expand, get rid of, or diminish. The biggest contradictory policy that Americans have strong feelings about, is abortion and sex trafficking. America likes to flip on the amount of foreign aid goes to a country based on their approach to abortion and prostitution. It is a sad scenario, but it's happened many times where America implements the "gag rule", simply because the country has a large number of abortion programs. It is my opinion that these policies be locked in more clearly. It is unfair to a country budgeting on foreign aid, to have it taken away by the word of one person. Foreign aid should be a majority vote and should hold true no matter what any one individual has to say on the matter.

Just to demonstrate how much financial aid comes out of our tax dollars: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/13/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-foreign-aid-makes-1-percent-us-b/

We went on to discuss the UNFPA, which works to promote family planning, maternal health, and newborn survival. Its a program born from the human rights arm of the United nations. We briefly discussed the how it operates, and its influence on maternal related issues in different countries. We talked about its role in encouraging China to implement its one child policy, and the female discrimination that has indirectly stemmed from the policy. It's a tough situation to mediate, but it's true that 60% of the world resides in southeast Asia, which leads to a number of over population problems. In my opinion, if the government is gonna tell you how many kids you can have they should just go full force and regulate the sexes that come out of each family. It's kinda despicable to see such a large population and they still have huge discriminatory abortion rates.

some despicable statistics on the direct and indirect discrimination against women http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-discrimination/statistics-on-discrimination-of-women/

We also discussed sex education and its place in different cultures and communities around the world. The class decided it wasn't fair to force an ideology on a specific culture, but we felt it was important that all information and resources are available to the group, so at least they can educate themselves and decide what else they would like to apply. The fact that religion interfered with peoples ability to learn about sex ed, female circumcision, and the reality of virginity, is kind of sickening. I understand the importance of values and traditions, but when it hurts and stigmatizes their women in the name of god, it's upsetting to see. Parents in these communities should be educated on the importance of positively rearing a child to increase their chances of success throughout their lives.

"We're even getting donations from college students and high school students. You can take a stand for the women of the world for just the price of a soda" -Jane Roberts (pg. 148)

This quote stood out to me, due to the huge impact brought on by a single woman's message. Jane Roberts took a stand against the most powerful man on the planet at the time, George w. Bush. Not only did she rally the 34 million donors she was looking to achieve, but she raised more than the initial amount of foreign aid that was going to be sent. By withholding those funds and taking a stand against UNFPA for its connection to abortion programs, Mr. Bush actually increased awareness and funding for the opposition. Mrs. Roberts perfectly resembles what a true leader is capable of doing when they put their mind to it.