Darth Vader and Women's Health

I am currently taking part in a salon, being hosted by the fantastic RH Reality Check and UN Dispatch blogs. It's a conversation about women's global health, and what next steps the US should take. I'm thrilled to be part of such an interesting conversation.

This was the prompt:

Among the first executive orders signed by President Obama upon taking to office were eliminating the so-called “Global Gag Rule” and restoring American funding for the United Nations Population Fund to provide international family planning assistance. I think we all would applaud these two moves, however I cannot but help shake the feeling that this brings us to where we were in 2000. For the past eight years activist communities have been organized around achieving these twin goals. Now that they have been met what else should the Obama administration do to promote the health and welfare of women worldwide?

And here's what I had to say:

There is a reason that George Lucas made prequels to the Stars Wars saga instead of sequels. What exactly do you do once the evil empire is gone? The opportunity we have mirrors the opportunity that the US has in general. We spent an enormous amount of time and energy fighting bad policy. Suddenly, that weight has been lifted. How do we keep our momentum going in a world where we can move forward instead of just trying to avoid sliding back?

I think the answer is to set, and publicize, some ambitious yet achievable goals. We have an opportunity here, but we need something to rally around. Many problems affecting women have solutions that have been proven to work. In particular, getting girls into school and reducing maternal mortality are ripe for serious attention. What we need to do now is push hard to get funding and prioritize education for girls and safer motherhood.  Setting challenging targets would be one way to do that.

The Akimbo blog has a great summary of the whole conversation so far. I'll keep posting my contributions to the discussion, but the salon home is the place to keep track of the whole thing.