Say what you want about Bill Gates - shitty operating systems, cutthroat business practices, whatever - the man gives a shitload of money to charitable causes. DU shows once again though, that no good deed goes unpunished.
Especially when you don't give your charity the
right (read: DU) way:
ensho (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 11:03 AM
Original message
Bill and Melinda ain't all that
http://www.truth-out.org/health-inequality-gates-founda...
Health Inequality: Gates Foundation Bans Abortion
Melinda French Gates, philanthropist, co-founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was greeted with great applause on the first day of the Women Deliver conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this summer. But the hand clapping was temporary. As a reproductive health advocate, I was not the only one who began to raise questions about her comments and her foundation's capacity to set the worldwide agenda for global health priorities. Gates announced that the foundation with her name on it, known for its important work on the prevention of poverty and the development of vaccines for HIV/AIDS and malaria, will designate $1.5 billion over the next five years to assist developing nations with integrated women's health care services.
She explained that this new priority will add to the empowerment, education and equality of women and girls. She described the services: nutrition, pre- and post-natal care, infant care, the training of women's health workers and obstetrical services.
-snip-
This is so despite the fact that access to safe abortion was one of "three core strategies to save women's lives" on the agenda of the Women Deliver conference, which was titled Invest in Women. It Pays. In attendance were 3,500 advocates from 140 countries. The goal was to seek out strategies to prevent maternal mortality so that "no person should die giving life." It's critical to note that if you believe in investing in women and girls, no woman or girl should ever die preventing life either. The statistics are stark: approximately 350,000 women lose their lives each year giving birth, from childbirth complications and injuries, and from illegal and unsafe abortions. All are preventable tragedies.
-snip-
As reported in 2006 in the public health journal, The Lancet, abortion is "a pandemic -- an urgent public health and human rights imperative." Nearly 68,000 women and girls die as a result of botched abortions -- this is 13 percent of all maternal deaths. Twenty times that number of women and girls will experience abortion-related complications that threaten their lives.
-snip-
*****
So why is the Gates Foundation ignoring the abortion care needs of women?
When asked on NPR by reporter Michele Norris, Melinda Gates said, "We don't want to be part of the controversy."
*****
-snip-
But the power and influence of the foundation go further. Because of its prestige, size and assets, the foundation is central to "setting the sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda around the world," in the words of policy researcher and writer Brook Elliott-Buettner in Gender Across Borders.
-snip-
------------------------------
the article ends with this:
"The Gates Foundation has chosen to sweep abortion off the charts of women's health and lives. And that is yet another crime against women."
rich people should not have the right to bully the world to do things their way.
this must mean the Gates are religiously insane.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9083901So you see, it doesn't matter that the Gates' are coughing up one-and-a-half billion for health services, since they have declined to pay for the murder of unborn children, they are eeeeeeeeevul.
Got that?
madmom (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 11:14 AM
Response to Original message
1. If they "don't want to be part of the controversy.", shouldn't they let the doctors and women
decide then?
Absolutely, and they should keep their money, too.
katandmoon (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 11:40 AM
Original message
So you have a choice to support women's health or the oligarch - and you go with the oligarth.
Only this time it's the "oligarch" that's supporting women's health. How much have you given?
proud2BlibKansan (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 11:37 AM
Response to Original message
7. Bill the college dropout wants to reform education
Now he thinks he can reform women's health.
ensho (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 11:56 AM
Response to Reply #9
19. you left out something - the women, us women, our sisters in Africa
the women are held hostage to the Gate's religious views. they say they don't want to be part of the problem. that's just a front to hide their religious insanity.
proud2BlibKansan (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 12:29 PM
Response to Reply #16
31. Are you related to Bill or something?
Your defense seems odd. I looked up his political contributions. He has given large sums of money to Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, Orrin Hatch, Bob Bennett and a bunch of other nasty GOPers. Why are we supporting him on a DEMOCRATIC discussion board?
Upton (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 12:41 PM
Response to Reply #31
34. Gates has also given money
to Schumer, Pelosi, Inslee, Leahy and Murray among others. In fact, through Feb. of this year, 54.13% of his donations have gone to Democrats.
Maybe that's one of the reasons he gets support on a Democratic discussion board.
mzteris (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 12:43 PM
Response to Reply #34
36. it shouldn't matter - the level of good that has been done
worldwide due to his foundation is what should be important.
But again, the "i didn't get my pony" crowd will vilify anyone who doesn't espouse their pet POV on any ONE GD ISSUE!
proud2BlibKansan (1000+ posts) Mon Sep-06-10 12:49 PM
Response to Reply #34
38. So he's bipartisan
One more reason I dislike him. How any thinking person can want to give even a dime to the party of NO is a mystery to me.
You can't win for losing with these people. That's why there's no point in trying to persuade or compromise. You just have to defeat them.
There's no question that DU in general has frowned on private charities except for the few that are dedicated to liberal causes. One reason is what you see here. If they can't control the agenda and say how much and where, then it doesn't pass their purity test. Another reason is that successful charities undermine their argument that Nanny Gubmint is the only way to take care of society.
Screw the ungrateful asswipes.
