African Women’s Welfare

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/opinion/african-womens-welfare.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Disappearance of Fertile Land Fuels ‘Looming Crisis’ in Africa” (front page, July 30):

Africa has the highest fertility rate in the world, driving a population boom that has led to desertification, destabilizing land grabs and violence.

On a recent trip through Kenya, Congo and Somalia, I interviewed more than a hundred women and girls. Despite widely varied contexts, two refrains were consistent: an acute awareness that their survival depends on choosing to have smaller families, and an utter lack of agency in making that a reality.

President Trump’s reinstatement of the global gag rule — which will dramatically cut funding for reproductive health services worldwide — is nothing short of a death sentence for Africans stretching into the next century. No policy costing tens of millions of lives, and perhaps the survival of a continent, can be termed “pro life.”

The United States can play a vital role in averting unfolding human catastrophe: We must fund the full array of reproductive health services for African women today.

LISA SHANNON, PORTLAND, ORE.

The writer is co-founder of Everywoman Everywhere, a grass-roots campaign to fight violence against women and girls, and the author of “A Thousand Sisters.”