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In the most recent U.S. election, citizens chose between President bama and Senator Romney. One issue widely scrutinized during the election was abortion. President Obama defended the right to pro-choice while Senator Romney promoted pro-life. With this issue, the candidates touched on women's rights, which has its roots from the 1800s. However, women's rights goes beyond on the choice of abortion; it is the idea of if a woman truly has control of her own body. Many women are asking themselves this very question with an increase in the maternal health care crisis. This is predominately present in poverty stricken nations. One such nation is Africa where half of the 340,000 deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes occur each year. 
In South Africa life has changed greatly after the apartheid. However, discrimination is still present and takes the form of a health care crisis. There is the choice of private health care, however most citizens cannot afford this care because it is too expensive and have to resort to public health care. Unfortunately, public health care has proven to be inadequate especially for women's health care. For example, in 2010 nearly 1 in 39 women died in childbirth. Women and girls are offered very little sexual education and are not properly protected from sexual violence, although it is against the law. In Uganda, there is a growing rate of women dying due to child birth. Uganda does receive foreign aid to help the nation develop. Yet, at hospitals in Uganda half the positions of doctors are vacant, there's a shortage of midwives and health workers, and numerous clinics and hospitals have regularly reported that they have run out of essential medicines. Furthermore, only a third of facilities delivering babies are equipped with basics like scissors, cord clamps and disinfectants. Last year the nation admitted that it had paid more than half a billion dollars for fighter jets and other military hardware which is almost triple the amount of its own money dedicated to the entire public health system. Simply put, Uganda is spending more money on its military (and other things) than it is on its citizens.
As a young girl living in the U.S., I find these facts astonishing. I think its misguided that public health care in South Africa is inadequate when it is the most needed care. Also, in a nation where 1 in 39 women dies in childbirth, it is imperative that women have the right to sexual education and proper care. However, this is lacking in South Africa when it is clearly needed. Uganda's maternal heath care crisis has become an epidemic with a simple lack of conscious care for the women in this nation. Women give birth to life; its almost a paradox that the women who are giving birth to Uganda's human military, where most of its money is spent, is cared for recklessly and barely even thought of. It furiates me that these women are dying because their leaders choose to spend more money on their military than on the health of the mothers of their nation. More importantly, these dying women are leaving motherless children behind. I can't imagine a life without my mother. A mother provides discipline, support, and love for a child. With a growing rate of child birth deaths, nations like Uganda and South Africa, will become mother less nations. Without mothers there will be corruption and hurt leading to self destruction.
