Here's Nicholas Kristof directing from the op-ed page of the 10-8-08 issue of the NYT a story of birth control withheld <link>:

Retrograde decisions on reproductive health are reached in conference rooms in Washington, but I’ve seen how they play out in African villages. A young woman lies in a hut, bleeding to death or swollen by infection, as untrained midwives offer her water or herbs. Her husband and children wait anxiously outside the hut, their faces frozen and perspiring as her groans weaken.

When she dies, her body is bundled in an old blanket and buried in a shallow hole, with brush piled on top to keep wild animals away. Her children sob and shriek and in the ensuing months they often endure neglect and are far more likely to die of hunger or disease.

Wouldn't we all be better served if Kristof were to put this example of his beef with the Bush administration into a civilized essay and one in which "African" death-by-childbirth would be compared to that experienced by others (in a specific country, this time, if possible) to whom the U.S. sends aid, and such as Israeli women might be?