'Reach Every Mother and Child' with what kind of message?

The lofty goal of the Reach Every Mother and Child Act, which has bipartisan support, is to save those lives. And while the measure does not mention contraception and abortion, Dr. Rebecca Oas of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) tells OneNewsNow that might be the direction of the funding.

"What that means is that a lot of money is going to go towards family planning, contraception, as opposed to maternal healthcare, because when you do the analysis, it looks like the most cost-effective measurement," Dr. Oas explains. "So that's where our concern is. They're going to go towards these family planning organizations, which are often also the same groups that promote abortion in developing countries."

So what will likely happen is the money will not be used for healthcare, but instead to prevent pregnancy and to abort children when pregnancy does occur. Currently, though, U.S. tax dollars supposedly cannot be used for the latter.

"I think that the key here is that the goal that we should be wanting to achieve as a country is to make it safe to give birth in other countries as it is in places like the U.S. and Europe, where this is not in most cases a matter of life and death," the C-FAM spokesperson poses. "It's a matter of equity, and simply telling women in other countries that to avoid dying in childbirth they should just avoid getting pregnant is not the message we want to send."

A better alternative would be to provide better pre- and post-natal care for the women, as well as healthcare for children to prevent maternal deaths and reduce the number of deaths of children through age five.