Dutch respond to Trump's 'gag rule' with international safe abortion fund
18 replies, posted
[quote]Up to 20 countries have indicated support for the Netherlands’ plan to set up an international safe abortion fund to plug a $600m funding gap caused by Donald Trump’s reinstatement of the “global gag rule”, the Dutch international development minister, Lilianne Ploumen, said on Wednesday.
Ploumen took soundings from a number of her colleagues around the world on Tuesday evening after the Netherlands said it would act to mitigate the impact on hundreds of charities around the world.
The “global gag rule”, also known as the Mexico City policy, was reimposed by Trump on Monday, and bans US federal funding for NGOs in foreign countries that provide abortion services or abortion advocacy.
‘We’re in talks with 15 to 20 countries and we’ve also spoken to foundations,” Ploumen told the Guardian. “As well as contacting a number of European countries that we work with on these issues, we’re also in touch with countries in South America and Africa, as well as the foundations. It’s important to have the broadest possible support for the fund.”[/quote]
[URL="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jan/25/netherlands-trump-gag-rule-international-safe-abortion-fund"]The Guardian[/URL]
Good on 'em. The entire world needs to keep giving the new US administration the finger until they start demonstrating they really are working for the people, not just themselves.
My sister had to have an abortion. Can't seem to find the right man, blah blah blah. I'll spare you the amount of men she's been with.
But basically if she couldn't have the abortion, we would have been stuck with it. A baby that no one wanted around the house, with two dogs, cats. She isn't financially stable, and the father didn't want anything to do with it.
I don't see why Abortion is such a timid thing. If the man and woman agree they shouldn't have a kid, they should be allowed to terminate. If a woman is raped, or somehow ends up with a kid from being idiotic and sleeping around without closing their legs, she should be allowed to terminate.
[QUOTE=Covalent;51726737]My sister had to have an abortion. Can't seem to find the right man, blah blah blah. I'll spare you the amount of men she's been with.
But basically if she couldn't have the abortion, we would have been stuck with it. A baby that no one wanted around the house, with two dogs, cats. She isn't financially stable, and the father didn't want anything to do with it.
I don't see why Abortion is such a timid thing. If the man and woman agree they shouldn't have a kid, they should be allowed to terminate. If a woman is raped, or somehow ends up with a kid from being idiotic and sleeping around without closing their legs, she should be allowed to terminate.[/QUOTE]
It comes to ethics. What determines personhood.
5 days of being the fucking president of the United States and we already need to start cleaning up for the damage he is causing
[QUOTE=Llamaguy;51726745]It comes to ethics. What determines personhood.[/QUOTE]
Fetal personhood by the medical definition (not something all policymakers agree on regardless) is 22-24 weeks of age, so-called 'brain birth' used to define the beginning of brainstem activity, with brainstem death as the other side of the coin at the end of a person's life. Actual fetal brain activity begins at ~9 weeks.
[QUOTE=Cructo;51726756]Good on them
But why are you all blaming the US for cutting spending for abortions in foreign countries[/QUOTE]
Read the first line of the article.
support for the Netherlands’ plan to set up an international safe abortion fund to plug a $600m funding gap caused by Donald Trump’s reinstatement of the “global gag rule”
[QUOTE=Cructo;51726800]I did read it but still why is everything being blamed on America, like calling it a "gag order" and some people saying to "give america the middle finger" when it's not really their responsibility to spend millions on abortion for foreign governments[/QUOTE]
But it isn't for foreign governments? Are you sure you read the article?
[QUOTE=Cructo;51726800]I did read it but still why is everything being blamed on America, like calling it a "gag order" and some people saying to "give america the middle finger" when it's not really their responsibility to spend millions on abortion for foreign governments[/QUOTE]
Because Trump just cut funding?
"urgh why blame america for cutting funding on something when they actually just cut funding on something"
It's interesting how 'spending millions on abortion for foreign governments' is terrible but spending literal billions on a provably ineffective method of border control is just fine and dandy. Food for thought, I think
[QUOTE=Cructo;51726869]but people are acting like they're entitled to US federal funding for something that doesn't really concern them :v:
this was pretty much charity that Trump decided to cut off
like, I agree that there needs to be proper support given for abortions but it's not one country's obligation to support a few people in other countries[/QUOTE]
do you realize you're the only person who brought up obligation in this thread, and the only one still talking about it?
maybe the US doesn't HAVE to be responsible for it, but do people really need to say it's america's [I]obligation[/I] to help before they criticize this decision? (hint: the answer is no)
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;51726759]Fetal personhood by the medical definition (not something all policymakers agree on regardless) is 22-24 weeks of age, so-called 'brain birth' used to define the beginning of brainstem activity, with brainstem death as the other side of the coin at the end of a person's life. Actual fetal brain activity begins at ~9 weeks.[/QUOTE]
Life begins at the commencement of brainstem activity, life ends at the cessation of brainstem activity.
Sounds nice, neat, and simple to me. Too bad we don't just use this metric in lawmaking...
[QUOTE=darth-veger;51726747]5 days of being the fucking president of the United States and we already need to start cleaning up for the damage he is causing[/QUOTE]
I don't get why the PvdA needs to throw some more money away to other countries at the moment given how big of a critic point it is in the upcoming elections on 15 March, but I guess they pretty much want to have a one-digit seat total after next elections instead of the 40 they had last election. It isn't like the coalition they are in right now has already ignored a referendum on sending millions of Euros towards Ukraine on purely the EU's orders. Which has rightfully pissed a good amount of people off in this country. Just one of the many promises that coalition has broken over the past few years.
Yeah, I know that we won't have to plug it all up ourselves on our own, but yet, in a time where the Dutch government has cut lots of funding for their own citizens, and especially to the elderly, it's no wonder that you see nationalist right-wing parties here are seeing a massive opportunity to gain a lot of seats by promising to take our sovereignty back from Brussels and keep the money primarily for the Dutch people themselves. No matter how this initiative goes, there are several million Euros of our tax money going to this, since we always gotta be that one country who pays the most per capita to stuff like that. And even if they manage to split the deal evenly between those 20 countries, that's still 30 million Euro for us down the drain, which will be most likely compensated by cutting into the elderly care and pension funds or law enforcement yet again.
[QUOTE=Jordax;51726975]I don't get why the PvdA needs to throw some more money away to other countries at the moment given how big of a critic point it is in the upcoming elections on 15 March, but I guess they pretty much want to have a one-digit seat total after next elections instead of the 40 they had last election. It isn't like the coalition they are in right now has already ignored a referendum on sending millions of Euros towards Ukraine on purely the EU's orders. Which has rightfully pissed a good amount of people off in this country. Just one of the many promises that coalition has broken over the past few years.
Yeah, I know that we won't have to plug it all up ourselves on our own, but yet, in a time where the Dutch government has cut lots of funding for their own citizens, and especially to the elderly, it's no wonder that you see nationalist right-wing parties here are seeing a massive opportunity to gain a lot of seats by promising to take our sovereignty back from Brussels and keep the money primarily for the Dutch people themselves. No matter how this initiative goes, there are several million Euros of our tax money going to this, since we always gotta be that one country who pays the most per capita to stuff like that. And even if they manage to split the deal evenly between those 20 countries, that's still 30 million Euro for us down the drain, which will be most likely compensated by cutting into the elderly care and pension funds or law enforcement yet again.[/QUOTE]
The elderly are actually the richest age demographic in the Netherlands, and also have the lowest poverty rate of all the age demographics
I'm not denying that our country has issues that need solving, but like I've said in a previous post, our country is one of the wealthiest in the world. And what country doesn't have issues? I think it's useless to constantly talk about how we can't help people from other parts of the world because we have our own issues. We'll [B]always[/B] have issues.
What the organisations that the U.S. (used to) donate to did apparently worked, and very well at that. It's not 'throwing money away' when it clearly works
Without these funds people will die. What makes their lives worth less than ours?
[editline]26th January 2017[/editline]
do you also know how little 30 million is compared to what our government spends
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