(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.