Open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay:
I am writing in regards to the war on terror. Our troops are in Afghanistan fighting this war. The odds of them winning this war are not great because of the nature of the enemy; however, there is a second terror in Afghanistan that we can make much headway on, a terror that we know how to defeat.
One out of eight mothers will die in the process of giving birth.
Can you image a women finding out she is pregnant and knowing that one of every eight women will die from maternal mortality?
According to the March New Internationalist, Afghanistan has the third highest rate in the world and is the only country in the bottom ten that is outside of Africa. Because we already have personnel on the ground there, it would seem to make a lot of sense to save as many lives as we could. It should not take too much effort to move Afghanistan out of the bottom 10 places.
One of the things that Canada places a high value on is its medical system, available to all.
Could we not, as proud Canadians, bring some of those values to a country where our troops are fighting for freedom?
We are without excuse, for we are there and we know how to help them.
Jack Vogt
via e-mail