(crossposted at the blog of the Nonviolent Choice Directory, http://www.nonviolentchoice.blogspot.com)
Even with the economic downturn in the US, most people here are still prosperous compared to the average person and family in the Two-Thirds World.
Are you still able to spare $8? UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, will send on your behalf a birthing kit to help protect and save the lives of one mother and one baby in a materially poorer country.
http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/getconnected/supplies/birthingkit/
(Note: Please no one jump all over me simply because this is a faith-based organization--although I don't think a lot of folks here would do that, given all the prochoicers of faith. UMCOR's relief work is something that I suspect people of all faiths and none could support--not all Christians use relief work as a pretense for prostelytizing by a long shot--but please check this out for yourself.)
Maternal and child mortality are interconnected global scourges. They are directly caused by the inhumane failure to make widely available even low-tech, inexpensive solutions like birthing kits or oral rehydration therapy to those who most desperately need them.
As UNFPA insists at http://www.unfpa.org/safemotherhood/mediakit/ --"No Woman Should Die Giving Birth." Please visit this UNFPA site if you want to learn more about this unnecessary, preventable global injustice--and please be the solution for one mother and one baby through UMCOR. Large institutional changes in health care are necessary to solve the problem on a massive scale, but individuals and families in the present cry out for direct and immediate help, too.
Surely this is an area where prolife and prochoice can and should cooperate.
