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STORY: UN / REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
TRT: 01:30
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 17 OCTOBER 2017, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
17 OCTOBER 2017, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Kollodge, Editor of the United Nations Population Fund’s State of World Population 2017:
“That reduction in funds, because the United States has discontinued funding UNFPA, is affecting the health and lives of thousands of women. In 2016 alone, we estimate that US money helped avert close to a million unintended pregnancies and avert about 2,300 maternal deaths. So, any reduction in funding for UNFPA has a direct impact on women and adolescent girls in developing countries.”
4. Med shot, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Kollodge, Editor of the United Nations Population Fund’s State of World Population 2017:
“UNFPA does not support abortion as a method of family planning, and the UNFPA position is that where abortion is legal it should be safe, and where is not legal, post-abortion care should be available to everybody to save lives.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Kollodge, Editor of the United Nations Population Fund’s State of World Population 2017:
“In most developing countries, the poorest women have the least power to decide whether, when and or how often to become pregnant. The poorest women also have the least access to quality care during pregnancy and childbirth. This inequity has lasting repercussions for women’s health, work life, and earnings potential, and for their contribution to their nation’s development and the elimination of poverty.”
8. Zoom out, end of presser
During the launch of the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) State of World Population 2017, the editor of the report, Richard Kollodge, today (17 Oct) said the United States’ decision to stop funding UNFPA “is affecting the health and lives of thousands of women.”
Kollodge said the US contribution of 69 million dollars to the Fund in 2016, “helped avert close to a million unintended pregnancies and avert about 2,300 maternal deaths.”
He said “any reduction in funding for UNFPA has a direct impact on women and adolescent girls in developing countries.”
Kollodge stressed that UNFPA “does not support abortion as a method of family planning, and the UNFPA position is that where abortion is legal it should be safe, and where is not legal, post-abortion care should be available to everybody to save lives.”
The US decision to cut funding was based on the claim that UNFPA supports, or participates in the management of, a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China, which was refuted by UNFPA.
On the findings of the report, Kollodge said “in most developing countries, the poorest women have the least power to decide whether, when and or how often to become pregnant. The poorest women also have the least access to quality care during pregnancy and childbirth. This inequity has lasting repercussions for women’s health, work life, and earnings potential, and for their contribution to their nation’s development and the elimination of poverty.”
The State of World Population 2017 is entitled “Worlds Apart: Reproductive Health and Rights in an Age of Inequality.”
