Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ladies, thank you for being here.
The World Health Organization says that for the fifth millennium development goal to be achieved, maternal mortality rates will have to decrease much faster that they did between 1990 and 2005, which means that there must be greater focus on women's health care and prevention of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, and women must be able to receive quality obstetrical care during pregnancy and childbirth.
Today, one seventh of the women in Africa die from failed or unsafe abortions or in childbirth. Nearly 1.7 million women a year have abortions that leave them injured, mutilated, unable to have children after or dead because they had children after. A total of 45,000 women die every year.
You said that was nothing to sneeze at. Don't all these women have the right to stay alive, like any woman who wants to have children, and look forward to having a child one day when they are ready to have one?
Don't you think that our goal as a country should also include ensuring that all women can live and survive pregnancy and childbirth or an abortion of an unwanted pregnancy?