Letters: Women's right to safe maternity care

Women's right to safe maternity care As a Nigerian woman, I know first-hand the tragedy of women losing their lives to pregnancy-related complications (Comment, June 30). As an attorney who recently completed a report on the causes of nearly 60,000 women dying every year in Nigeria, I know it's time for us to move beyond the global promises to address maternal mortality and to start enforcing the legal human rights obligations already agreed upon in state constitutions and international treaties. Nigeria, for example, has adopted numerous policies that would reduce the high number of maternal deaths, but the government repeatedly fails to implement them. If donor countries put pressure on Nigeria to allocate 15% of its annual budget to improve the health sector - as it pledged to do - then healthcare workers might actually... [read full story]