Its fine to save money letting women die in child birth this year, as long as we are going to spend money preventing other women die in child birth in other years.

[Market1]

( second posting, as first one vanished...)

We have been culpable in contributing to horrendous poverty and conflict in so many areas of the globe, through political interference in the past, and climate damage now, so it is right and proper that we think long and hard about supporting pregnant women abroad in the future, and as long as we promise to continue thinking long and hard, it is fine for a few thousand to die in child birth while we think, after all, they are a long way away, and their English isn't very good.

And if they don't fancy their chances of survival in their home countries, there is always an easy road and a warm welcome waiting for them here! And a mere quarter of a million unsafe abortions? That is nothing to concern ourselves about.

YANBU - it is fine, we need to save money, and a few thousand deaths in childbirth is nothing in the grand scheme of things
YABU - we should support these women through overseas aid today, even if their English isn't very good....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66378364

I'd rather we looked after our starving children and pensioners than sending money to countries that prioritise weapons and armies over their citizens. Foreign aid is like pissing in the wind.

Charity starts at home.

@Market1 I was a free school meals child, as were all my siblings.

Thank god the LEA had the sense not to give the money to my parents, My df would have spent it in the bookies and we would all have starved.

The whole point of FSM is that hot nutritious food actually reaches the children !

I have an Indian friend. She told me that India has enough money and rich people to sort out poverty there, but their rich don't want to.

So how can the people here pick up the pieces from that?

This civil service investigations indicates that the difference between honouring our aid commitments and not honouring them will be death for thousands of women.

For any one of those women, and their children, this is not "pissing in the wind", this is a tangible, life and death scenario.

People shouldn't be so quick to minimize our role in causing a lot of these situations. My in laws remember gaining independence, and have lived through the decades of shit that have followed. If we make a mess we need to be prepared to clean it up IMO.

Why is your yanbu and yabu reversed from what you actually think?

exactly, we are a very privileged society, and a lot of our wealth has come from exploiting others, and not only that, but a lot of climate damage devastating other parts of the world is originating in our current and ongoing entitled behaviour.

We need to focus our support here
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/16/uk-has-second-highest-maternal-death-rate-in-eight-country-european-study#:~:text=In%20the%20UK%2C%20there%20were,in%20seven%20of%20the%20countries.

People who say we should help those at home first - somehow always turn out to be the people who also want to cut benefits and services.

International Aid boosts our reputation hugely around the world and in the grand scheme of things it costs peanuts. We're losing global influence and becoming a sad backwater because of all this crabby small-mindedness.

You live in a fantasy world if you think all parents will spend this on food and preparing nutritional meals for their kids. For some kids this might be the only decent meal they eat each day through feckless parenting.

I think the UK stopped giving aid to India a few years ago

Except it doesn't, does it? The cuts here won't go to that. They'll be spent on HS2 or whatever bullshit.

Here's an idea - we're the sixth richest country in the world, how about we fund healthcare here and find some spare to help people in other countries as well?

and you are living in a fantasy world if you think the muck being handed out as a free school meal could be classified as a "decent meal" in any universe. - it is just a waste of money

My DD is a student midwife and believe me, there's no way I'd want to give birth under the NHS these days. The service has been cut to the bone.

So yes I'd rather the money for foreign aid went there.

Programme spent £2.3bn between 2016 and 2021 but is fragmented and lacks a clear rationale, report says
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/14/uk-aid-india-human-rights-democracy-watchdog

The whole point is I DON'T want to cut services, (there is nothing left to cut) which is why I believe that while we deal with financial issues at home, we cannot increase the foreign aid budget.

So, why don't "we" do either?

Yes yes more deaths there but we have plenty of excess deaths here too due to lack of funded healthcare. In January 2023, the RCEM stated that there were 300 and 500 excess deaths each week in the UK solely due to A&E delays and doctors are warning this number is going to be higher this winter due to further A&E shortfalls, or 22,000 British residents for all of 2022.

This is in addition to the 113,000 excess deaths due to the longest ever NHS waitlists for nonemergency care for things like surgery and cancer treatment.

We are not a rich, powerful empire. We don’t even have the money to keep our own residents from dying when they should be surviving. Why on Earth should we be prioritising foreign aid in these circumstances?

So you are willing to let UK children (whos parents would not use the money for food ) starve to save the Admin costs

We have been culpable in contributing to horrendous poverty and conflict in so many areas of the globe, through political interference in the past, and climate damage now, so it is right and proper that we think long and hard about supporting pregnant women abroad in the future

How about paying UK foreigin aid to Irish maternity hospitals ?

It makes sense with our own healthcare system so poor

FSMs are the same meals that paying children get and they are decent meals imho. It’s not a waste of money when you consider the alternative is seagulling half eaten plates of food in cafes/restaurants and dumpster diving.

Only someone who hasn’t been hungry would turn their nose up at a school meal.

I think it is totally wrong and unacceptable to cut the aid budget.

No matter how much we may be feeling the COL crisis, it is for those with the broadest shoulders to take on the biggest burdens. And by global terms we are broad-shouldered and so should be at least maintaining our overseas aid spending

How broad shouldered are we these days? The global situation is changing. Some countries are accelerating and it’s not really the west anymore

Not much we can do about that though, just general progression and change

Yes of course tax the rich.

If you tax the rich they will just move to another country (as they are doing already because our tax rates are higher than other countries).

Who should we tax then?

What about taxing you?

The school meals in my kids school are pretty decent to be honest. But even if it wasn't great it's more than what some kids have at home. I used to run a brownie group and one kid would regularly have a pot noodle for dinner. Don't underestimate how shit some parents are.