By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager
Wednesday is World Population Day.
It’s also the start of a family planning summit organized by the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation. And even though
women have been looking to avoid getting pregnant for as long as there have
been women, for some reason, contraception has now become “controversial.”
REALLY?
It shouldn’t be. Family planning saves lives, as this great
new video featuring Melinda Gates shows. In fact, a new report by the
Guttmacher Institute finds that providing contraception for all the women
around the world who don’t currently have access would prevent 54 million unintended
pregnancies, 26 million abortions, 21 million unplanned births, 79,000
pregnancy-related deaths and 1.1 million infant deaths. What’s the controversy
in that?
By providing access to contraception, we’re providing access
for women to determine the course of their own lives. They’re able to have the
children they desire and care for the ones they have. Each child can get the food
she requires, the attention she craves, the education she needs, and the future
she wants. Families, then villages, then entire nations can rise out of poverty
– all
because women have a choice. What’s the controversy in that?
Family planning didn’t used to be controversial. In fact,
Richard Nixon – that hard-core liberal – once
said: “It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to
family planning assistance because of her economic condition.” In 1967, that
other hard-core liberal, George H.W. Bush, said the federal government
should “work even more closely with going private agencies such as Planned
Parenthood” to provide contraception for every American woman.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for today’s lawmakers to say
such a thing.
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