Family Planning Must Be a Priority
American women, like those in other industrialized countries, take our family planning for granted. But we shouldn’t. It’s only been 40 years since family planning was recognized as an international human right.
It was May 13, 1968, that the International Conference on Human Rights, held in Tehran, declared: “Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children.”
It is an understatement to say that for women worldwide, this was a revolutionary declaration. For millenniums, women were valued almost exclusively as mothers — while family planning was illegal. But women have sought means of limiting their mothering at least since Cleopatra tried using gold pellets. Women have always known that family planning gives them options — time to mature, to get an education or hold a job, or to recover from previous pregnancies.
Women also know that motherhood, though beautiful, is dangerous. More than 40 percent of all pregnancies suffer complications, and in 15 percent of pregnancies the complications are life-threatening. Infection, hemorrhage, high blood pressure (eclampsia), and obstructed labor, were routine killers of women worldwide, rich and poor alike, until the western medical advances of the 20th century. The Taj Mahal is a bereaved emperor’s monument to the wife who died at the age of 39 giving birth to his 14th child. In 1900, death in childbirth was still common, but women around the world bore an average of six children each.
The arrival of the intra-uterine device and the birth control pill in 1960 began the era of safe, affordable and effective contraceptives, and pressure from educated women gradually led to its legalization around the world.
In the past 40 years, modern contraceptive use has risen from 10 percent of married couples worldwide to about 65 percent today. Women are bearing half as many children as their mothers did. The global average is now three each.
But these averages disguise great disparities. In the developing world, some 200 million women have no access to safe and effective contraceptives. Fully half of the earth’s 190 million annual pregnancies are unintended, and a third of them end in abortions. Unsafe abortions are among the top pregnancy-related causes that kill one woman every minute — more than 536,000 deaths a year — nearly all in poor areas. Universal access to family planning could avert at least a third of these deaths. It could also liberate the time, energy and creativity of millions of women to become economically and socially productive in societies struggling for economic development.
However, family planning is no longer a priority for international aid programs. Funding from donor countries and agencies has declined steadily since 1995, even though half of all people on Earth are under 25, and every year, millions more of them become sexually active. Their needs and rising AIDS-prevention efforts are expected to increase contraceptive demand by 40 percent in the next 15 years. If that demand is not met, international health and poverty reduction goals will not be met either.
It’s a shame the U.S. government doesn’t set more of a priority on supporting international family planning because the majority of voters would support such efforts. The Women Donors Network, together with Communications Consortium Media Center, conducted research among voters nationwide, surveying attitudes on important life decisions. We found that 91 percent of voters agreed that couples should have access to birth control. Voters believe, by 83 percent, that we should respect people’s ability to make their own life decisions, including when to give birth — and not impose our values and views on them.
There was also very strong support for the idea that family planning is a requirement for women’s human rights. An overwhelming majority — 78 percent — told researchers that they agreed with this statement: “For women to achieve equality, they must have access to family planning services, including birth control and contraception.”
The U.S. should pledge with renewed determination to make sure every woman can plan when and how often to become a mother. It has officially been a human right for 40 years, but in too many places, it’s not yet a reality.
Donna P. Hall is the CEO of the Women Donors Network, based in Menlo Park, Calif. This column was provided via the American Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization.
© 2008 Capital Newspapers
During his address to the UN, I found myself agreeing with much of what Pope Benedict had to say: it IS critical that we prevent the concentration of so much power in the hands of so few; it IS necessary for us to see to the most basic needs of the world’s poorest people.
But Ms. Hall’s concern - probably the most critical of all - is precisely the one that Pope Benedict did not address, because he CANNOT address it.
I don’t normally copy my own posts into other threads, but here is one where I find myself with the same thoughts after reading two articles:
It’s hard to be both pro-life and pro-choice at the same time. But that’s where I find myself—not “liking” abortion and knowing that every woman should always have a personal choice about bearing more (or even any) children.
Three trends I would like to see (in addition to condoms):
1) MEN counseling MEN in our cultures to “be responsible guys” who do not impregnate women at untimely life moments.
(Sorta like “friends don’t let friends drive drunk”)
2) More men willing to get vasectomies, and possibly very early in life. (I’ve had one for 34 years, since age 22.)
3) After-the-fact contraceptives, such as “Plan B” as commonplace and no-strings available as chewing gum.
I like what you have posted, Daniel, even though you posted it twice. The two columns you responded to (the one on population control amd this one on birth control as a human right) are closely aligned, eh?
I would love to live in a world in which all men took as much responsibility for birth control as they possibly can. I hope I don’t alienate you, Daniel, when i state that I have the (no doubt biased) assumption that in many parts of the world, men still tend to think of their women as something they own, perhaps a reflection of their manhood and they still tend to think of many children as a (inadequate) reflection of their virility.
Now I am thinking of women who live in Saudi Arabia where women are never supposed to ever been seen by any males except for their father, brothers and husband. I think the women living inside those scary robes that hide them are nearly helpless about birth control choices. So long as there are cultures in this world where men think they have a right to control everything, gosh, I don’t see how all women can have their human right of being able to control birth control
Also, the way the right has insisted on framing birth control and family planning as some kind of threat to their values (many liken birth control to abortion), well, these are all issues about male domination.
If a woman controls the right to the destiny of her body, deciding when she will get pregnant and when she won, well, then men no longer control life itself. I think almost all sujugation of women is rooted in the male dominator culture’s desire to control, yes, I’ll write it, their sperm. I think the institution of marriage is rooted in the male desire to control their sperm. Women are the givers of life, not men. All female domination is rooted in this inescapable fact.
Well, I’m rambling, not particularly responding to this column. I like the column. I wish it went further.
I would like to read about how the Bush administration has tried to only fund family planning education that suggests that abstinence is the only way to avoid pregnancy. It is horrific what has happened to sex and birth control education under the Bush administration, rolling back women’s human right of birth control, isn’t it? I’ve read that the Bush administration will not fund programs to give women condoms to protect themselves from AIDS in some African countries.
Daniel, thanks for your post and your insistence that men stand up and take responsibility for their actions. I used to have a bumper sticker that read “Against Abortion? Wear a Condom, Dude.” You’d be amazed at the number of men who asked me what it meant…
It’s easy to be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time, just not pro-life in the way that Christian conservatives describe it. The idea of being pro-choice is just that - giving everybody a choice to choose an abortion or not choose an abortion, to choose how many children they have and when they have them, to choose whether or not to use birth control and what to use. If you dislike abortion then, as you said, don’t get a woman pregnant. Condoms have a fabulous rate of efficacy and Plan-B is there for the .1% of times that a condom fails. Every child should be a wanted child and good access to family planning is essential to this. Anti-choicers have a slogan that I’m sure is familiar to most of you: “Life, What a Beautiful Choice”. I would have to agree, it is a great choice - if you have the ability to make it in the first place. For myself, I prefer to turn it around: “Choice, What a Beautiful Life”!
Pro-choice is good. The choice should rest with women. Men should take responsibility use condoms. But there is another, uglier side too. Maybe there should be tax benefits only for the first two children. It is time perhaps to take political action against countries who simply export their excess populations. Perhaps less economic or military aid for countries where the people are not educated in reproductive choice or have the means for it withheld. Perhaps individuals from these countries should have little access to countries where reproductive choice is available.
T-2002 - great idea, except that the Global Gag Rule prevents any country receiving aid from the US from discussing abortion and a good chunk of the money that we do send goes to abstinence-only, which we all know is super-effective. So maybe we should start putting our money where our mouth is before we require then to learn things we actively prevent them from learning. Perhaps individuals from these countries should have the MOST access to countries with reproductive choice.
“It was May 13, 1968, that the International Conference on Human Rights, held in Tehran, declared: “Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children.””
Held in Tehran? And now the Bush administration is talking about bombing the place. Interesting.
Those behind Family Planning tend to be of the Margaret Sanger Eugenics persuasion, but giving this one the benefit of the doubt, I would say, lets leave the world alone. USAID and the various UN programs are Malthusian stooges, leaving behind a wake of sterilized women, via vaccination or medical procedures that women do not realize are being done. I live in a country that was targeted and the fertility rates are among the lowest in the world, 1, well below China at 1.7. (2.1 is replacement level)
Our country has a history of doing evil secretly while pretending to do Good. Lets spare the world from any more of our good deeds, and take care of our own house, which is an awful mess.
Here is a nice recap of the eugenics evolution to family planning movement.
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker%20news/eugenics_and_environmentalism.htm
Good thinking Daniel David.
Mimi - Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger whose ideas about eugenics are not forgotten. But, as a proud volunteer for and supporter of Planned Parenthood I can say with certainty that the organization does not support family planning as a mean to pushing eugenics. We are open and honest about that unfortunate chapter of our past. To make the assumption that family planning is all about eugenics is to deny the positive impact that family planning has had for countless women and families all over the world.
Men should take more responsibility and I applaud all you guys pushing that line… meanwhile until men get it together…. women all over the world are under the thumbs of males and need support for getting education, jobs, legal rights, medical care, maternal care and contraception.
Women’s rights and access to family planning are part of solving almost every problem facing the human race.
I agree that we should be vigilant about the eugenics strain in top echelons of family planning groups such as Planned Parenthood and the Population Council. That being said, most line-workers for Planned Parenthood are responsible professionals who care about the health of their clients.
Treefitz,
No, you didn’t “alienate” me at all. A few more random thoughts on all this.
Since you brought up Saudi Arabia, I never had a sister, but I literally CANNOT imagine having one and being obliged by culture to help “control” either her or her romantic life as a matter of male “family honor”. The whole notion seems odd and absurd literally beyond what I can fathom. Yet, lots of the brothers think like that over there. An Islam thing? Or a “kingdom” thing? Or a side-effect of keeping women shielded from view inside the “tents” women must put on and walk around in? Or brothers being taught to love male-bonding more than to love a girl? (I really don’t know, but I wish I wasn’t sending money there when stopping at the gas pump here in America.)
I really do believe that “Plan B” and its future generic (we hope) versions could help put the “choice” thing where it belongs, in the hands of women to MORE READILY choose not to let a baby get started, rather than to have to choose later to end the life of a living baby or not.
Choice for women?
Yes, absolutely, permanently, everywhere (we hope, in time.) But is it not also the duty of MEN on earth to provide women with choice options that are kind to them? Options that are not blocked by legislation, AND ARE NOT LITTERED WITH GUILT POTENTIAL, PUBLIC SCORN AND PHYSICAL DANGER? Abortion is a TOUGH choice.
Plan B (or future things like it) EASILY available everywhere seems like a KINDER “choice”, kinder to both the babies prevented (instead of killed) and kinder to the women who are obligated to choose.
Effective family planning requires putting power in the hands of women, and this is unacceptable in the troglodyte countries. Worse, the US is too misogynist to demand it.
I thought the Taj Mahal was a monument of love ! Turns out the ol’ emperor rode his wife hard and put her away wet a few too many times.
The future of the Global Gag Rule depends entirely on who is elected in the U.S. in November. If it’s McBush, expect 4 more years of the GGR. Otherwise GGR will be removed in January 2009, and UNFPA will get its funding from the USA restored.
Yo Boo,
What the problem is:
Responsible! Most American men & women are not.
Feels good, do it, heck with anything else, baby.
Bong, we are preg. What to do? Bong - cut it out,
kill it, flush it. AND do it again! Yeal real
responsible. That is what happens to new life if
you leave it up to the W O M A N.
Honor! Again most American men & women do not even know what that means, never mind few have it.
Do the right thing, oh no - free love (sex is what
they mean - not love), peace, don’t work, dont
serve and never ever sacrifice.
Divorce/marry! More divorce in the USA than in
any nation in the middle east. Wow, surprise. So
maybe there is something to this “keep eye on the
women”, huh? No, why not. Oh our American women
are free to cheat, lie, sex with anyone, married or
not (feels good so do it, huh?). Marriage vow?
Means nothing to a lier or one who has NO honor -
male or female. Christians? Their divorce rate
is higher than non-Christians. Whats with that?
Yo boo, you got it “if it feels good do it, heck
with what is right”.
Womans rights? Right to murder is what you mean,
honey. Boom-boom again & murder again. ANYTIME
you have sex, you may cause a live human being to
come life. So,can’t I know, control your basic
animal lust till you really find the ONE to love,
marry & then have a family. Otherwise the fact,
I know your head is in the ground, you murder.
Men are just like women to blame. SO responsible,
honor is your only real choice.. Sacrifice your
lust, be decent and wait if single or if married -
stand by your man (husband). Be the GOOD example
not the evil one.
most respectfully,
George
your favoright neocon, retired Army combat vet officer & Texican