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Harper wraps up maternal health conference

Prime minister Stephen Harper wrapped up the first summit for maternal and child health today with much fanfare from everyone involved.
Much of the talk at today’s summit focused on Canada’s renewed commitment of $3.5 billion to funding maternal health abroad. But the prime minister was also answering questions about what he’s not funding.
As the summit wrapped up, prime minister Harper stood tall with his partner, president Kikwete of Tanzenia and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon who called upon other nations to follow Canada’s lead.
“We can not accept it that it is normal to lose any women any children anywhere,” said Ban.
Back in 2010, Harper pledged $2.85 billion to maternal health, and the government says that saved 400,000 newborn children.
The centre piece of this year’s summit came yesterday in the form of Canada continuing and expanding its commitment to maternal health abroad with $3.5 billion between 2015 and 2020…
“This re-affirms that we are on the right track. It reaffirms that saving every woman and every child is within reach,” said foreign affairs minister John Baird.
At his closing news conference, it wasn’t the money pledged, but rather what it would be spent on that was being questioned. Funding is focused on immunization, vaccination, and nutrition for children, but there is no money to deal with the the high number deaths from illegal abortions in developing nations. Harper said that is because abortion is a very divisive issue in more than just Canada.
“We have to keep focused on what we agree on, which is broadly, saving the lives of mothers and their babies, and we’re not going to embark on something that’s going to cause widespread division because we have got the world community mobilized on these objectives,” said Harper.
The prime minister said that the areas they are focused on make the most difference in maternal health. Ban Ki-moon was clear to point out that abortion is illegal in many nations and that it is the priority of the UN not to intervene in local customs.
“Where it is legal, it should be safe,” said Ban.
The prime minister has said that the next step is to convince their partners from the rest of the world to match their 2010 contribution which at that time amounted to $40 billion.