Life is precious, and no life is too small or too far away to matter. If that conviction means anything, the fight against malaria belongs near the center of the pro-life movement, not at its edges. We believe it does, and more voices should say so.
In maternity wards across malaria-endemic regions, a simple acronym appears again and again in birth registries: IUFD (Intra-Uterine Fetal Death). Behind those four letters is a heartbreaking pattern. Too often, a baby arrives already lost or dies during labor after a pregnancy that should have ended in celebration. The cause is frequently hidden in plain sight: a damaged placenta, scarred by malaria, unable to deliver the oxygen and nutrients a growing child needs to survive.
Follow the trail backward and the story often starts with a mosquito biting an expecting mother, which leads to malaria, maternal anemia, and an under-resourced health system. What looks like a medical notation on a hospital ledger is a profound human tragedy that results in a life that never had the chance to begin.
Last year, malaria claimed over 600,000 lives — the majority of which were African children. In fact, malaria is the leading cause of death for children under five in sub-Saharan Africa — a grim reality marked by the deaths of toddlers and infants, often within hours of spiking a fever, often in the arms of mothers who could not reach a clinic in time.
Pregnant women are uniquely vulnerable to malaria: pregnancy alters the immune response, and the malaria parasite can accumulate in the placenta, impairing the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the developing baby. Malaria in pregnancy increases the risk of severe maternal illness, anemia, miscarriage, stillbirth, fetal growth restriction, low birth weight, and preterm birth.
In some of the highest-burden countries, more than one-third of pregnant women experience malaria infection. If we are serious about improving maternal and newborn outcomes, malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment must be integrated into the core of obstetrical and perinatal care—as a priority, not an afterthought.
Those of us who believe every life is worth saving should know that malaria is one of the most preventable diseases on Earth. A long-lasting insecticide-treated bed net costs about two dollars, and a full course of treatment for an infected child costs less than one. New vaccines are now being deployed in some of the hardest-hit countries. The tools work, and they save lives at a scale almost no other intervention can match.
American leadership has been central to this fight. The U.S. President's Malaria Initiative has helped prevent millions of deaths since it was launched 20 years ago. Faith-based organizations — Catholic, evangelical, and mainline Protestant — run clinics, distribute nets, and train community health workers in the hardest-hit regions. Our movement is, in many ways, already in this fight; it just doesn't always claim the credit.
But progress has stalled. Funding pressures, drug-resistant parasites, and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes have given the disease an opening. After 20 years of hard-won progress, malaria cases are rising and the window to keep this disease in check is closing.
The good news is this is a fight we can win, and the path forward is already on the table. President Trump’s America First Global Health Strategy commits to cutting malaria mortality by 90 percent by 2030 and eliminating the disease in at least 35 countries. It backs the tools that work — bed nets, treatments, diagnostics, vaccines — and the frontline workers who deliver them and commits to bringing promising new tools to market. This is a strategy we should champion: accountable, measurable, and aimed squarely at the lives of children and mothers.
We have spent decades arguing that the smallest, most vulnerable lives are the ones that most demand our protection. Malaria takes those lives by the hundreds of thousands every year. We have the tools to stop it. The question is whether we will keep using them — and whether the people who say every life matters will say it loudly enough to ensure we do.
Robert (Bob) Scanlon, M.D. and George Mulcaire-Jones, M.D. are pro-life physicians and longtime members of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (AAPLOG) who developed the Safe Passages Quality Care Collaborative for maternal health in Africa. Dr. Scanlon is an OB/GYN on Long Island, New York. As well as working and providing training in Africa, Dr. Mulcaire-Jones practiced family medicine and obstetrics in Montana for 30 years.
In maternity wards across malaria-endemic regions, a simple acronym appears again and again in birth registries: IUFD (Intra-Uterine Fetal Death). Behind those four letters is a heartbreaking pattern. Too often, a baby arrives already lost or dies during labor after a pregnancy that should have ended in celebration. The cause is frequently hidden in plain sight: a damaged placenta, scarred by malaria, unable to deliver the oxygen and nutrients a growing child needs to survive.
Follow the trail backward and the story often starts with a mosquito biting an expecting mother, which leads to malaria, maternal anemia, and an under-resourced health system. What looks like a medical notation on a hospital ledger is a profound human tragedy that results in a life that never had the chance to begin.
Last year, malaria claimed over 600,000 lives — the majority of which were African children. In fact, malaria is the leading cause of death for children under five in sub-Saharan Africa — a grim reality marked by the deaths of toddlers and infants, often within hours of spiking a fever, often in the arms of mothers who could not reach a clinic in time.
Pregnant women are uniquely vulnerable to malaria: pregnancy alters the immune response, and the malaria parasite can accumulate in the placenta, impairing the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the developing baby. Malaria in pregnancy increases the risk of severe maternal illness, anemia, miscarriage, stillbirth, fetal growth restriction, low birth weight, and preterm birth.
In some of the highest-burden countries, more than one-third of pregnant women experience malaria infection. If we are serious about improving maternal and newborn outcomes, malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment must be integrated into the core of obstetrical and perinatal care—as a priority, not an afterthought.
Those of us who believe every life is worth saving should know that malaria is one of the most preventable diseases on Earth. A long-lasting insecticide-treated bed net costs about two dollars, and a full course of treatment for an infected child costs less than one. New vaccines are now being deployed in some of the hardest-hit countries. The tools work, and they save lives at a scale almost no other intervention can match.
American leadership has been central to this fight. The U.S. President's Malaria Initiative has helped prevent millions of deaths since it was launched 20 years ago. Faith-based organizations — Catholic, evangelical, and mainline Protestant — run clinics, distribute nets, and train community health workers in the hardest-hit regions. Our movement is, in many ways, already in this fight; it just doesn't always claim the credit.
But progress has stalled. Funding pressures, drug-resistant parasites, and insecticide-resistant mosquitoes have given the disease an opening. After 20 years of hard-won progress, malaria cases are rising and the window to keep this disease in check is closing.
The good news is this is a fight we can win, and the path forward is already on the table. President Trump’s America First Global Health Strategy commits to cutting malaria mortality by 90 percent by 2030 and eliminating the disease in at least 35 countries. It backs the tools that work — bed nets, treatments, diagnostics, vaccines — and the frontline workers who deliver them and commits to bringing promising new tools to market. This is a strategy we should champion: accountable, measurable, and aimed squarely at the lives of children and mothers.
We have spent decades arguing that the smallest, most vulnerable lives are the ones that most demand our protection. Malaria takes those lives by the hundreds of thousands every year. We have the tools to stop it. The question is whether we will keep using them — and whether the people who say every life matters will say it loudly enough to ensure we do.
Robert (Bob) Scanlon, M.D. and George Mulcaire-Jones, M.D. are pro-life physicians and longtime members of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (AAPLOG) who developed the Safe Passages Quality Care Collaborative for maternal health in Africa. Dr. Scanlon is an OB/GYN on Long Island, New York. As well as working and providing training in Africa, Dr. Mulcaire-Jones practiced family medicine and obstetrics in Montana for 30 years.
