Sean Patrick Maloney: “In the past few weeks, thousands of doctors from the frontline in the global fight to save women's lives were here in…”

“In the past few weeks, thousands of doctors from the frontline in the global fight to save women's lives were here in our Nation's Capital as part of the International Federation of Gynecologists and Obstetricians conference. Many of these doctors have launched a petition drive urging the President and all of us to end the onerous gag rule that impedes their ability to treat their patients. For these doctors, the death of some 600,000 women each year from pregnancy-related causes is not just a statistic. It represents their neighbors, their friends, their relatives, and their patients. It represents the fact that one out of every 48 pregnant women in their communities will not survive childbirth because of preventable complications. For these doctors, the fact that U.S. funding for international family planning and related reproductive health programs has declined 30 percent since 1995 has very real consequences.”