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New Study: American Women Use Contraception for Great Reasons!

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

I’m not usually a big proponent of made-up holidays (International Talk Like a Pirate Day and National Donut Day excluded) but I can TOTALLY get behind this one:  Tomorrow -- Sept. 26 -- is World Contraception Day! Yessss!

I'm a huge fan of family planning. Contraception has allowed me to choose the direction of my life rather than have only one option – motherhood. Given my lifelong disinterest in parenthood, I’ve instead chosen to focus on being a wife, writer, employee, volunteer and cool (I hope) auntie to seven great nieces and nephews.

I’m not alone. A new study just out from the Guttmacher Institute proves what I've suspected all along: American women use contraception to  -- wait for it – “better achieve their life goals.” Whoa.

"We can wait to have a kid until we're ready? YES!" (Mathias Kunzli/Flickr)

(Of course, some conservatives argue that women shouldn’t have any life goals beyond being a wife and mother, but I’d kindly suggest that they have at it if they'd like but let the rest of us live our lives how we see fit, thank you very much.)

Tidbits from the study:

• 63% of women surveyed say contraception has helped them better take care of themselves and their families – including the kids they’ve already got.
• 56% say contraception has allowed them to support themselves financially.
• 51% say contraception has allowed them to complete their education. Those silly women thinking they need college degrees!
• 50% say contraception has allowed them to get or keep a job.

Among reasons women said they used contraception were that they could not afford a baby (65%), they weren’t ready to have children (63%), to have better control over their lives (60%) and wanting to wait until their lives are more stable to add a baby to it (60%).

Those sound like really responsible reasons to me! And here I thought we were all using birth control to engage in wanton hedonism. Oh well.

Book Review: "Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion"

By Alena Yarmosky, Outreach and Grassroots Fellow

 

Margaret Sanger was one cool chick. And I don’t mean cool in the way that a pop song is cool – hip for .3 seconds before losing its grip to the most recent summer jam. Margaret Sanger was cool in the unique sense of the word reserved for people who have the courage to fight for a cause they believe in, the grit to keep fighting, and the tenacity to succeed.

But Margaret Sanger’s cool factor is also based on something infinitely more real and beautiful than any superficial melody. Margaret Sanger was flawed.

  

Sanger’s view on reproductive rights and fight for universal access to birth control (as well as her controversial teachings on safe sex, child bearing and maternal health) make her a frequent target of those on the religious right, even today. But recently those on the pro-choice, progressive side of the aisle have also shied away from Sanger, allowing words like “eugenicist” and “egotistical” to mar her story and deter from her accomplishments.

Jean H. Baker’s biography “Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion” rejects the narrow-mindedness that has characterized many previous Sanger biographies and instead focuses on Margaret Sanger’s life as a whole – her flaws and missteps yes, but also her determination, intelligence, and steadfast commitment to improving the lives of millions of women and their families.

The sixth daughter of poor parents in Corning, N.Y., Margaret Sanger watched her mother endure five more pregnancies before succumbing to tuberculosis at a young age. After training as a nurse in what was to become New York’s Lower East Side, Sanger helped young women deliver child after child, many of whom could not afford to feed their growing families and begged for the “secret” of pregnancy prevention.  Horrified by the injustice she saw, Sanger began in earnest the campaign that would dictate the rest of her life: She wrote many books, gave countless speeches all over the country, opened the first women’s health clinics in the U.S., and ultimately spawned a birth control movement that would expand around the world.

She was tough, she was dedicated, and perhaps unsurprisingly, she was difficult to befriend. Too often Sanger engaged in heated rivalry with her feminist counterparts, choosing personal notoriety over potential collaboration.  She was known to bend the facts, ignore the contributions of her co-workers, and occasionally pass off others’ stories as her own.  She left her children for long stretches of time, preferring a life of travel and activism to the comforts and responsibilities of home.

Yet as ruthless as she was – and Baker makes this point clear – Margaret Sanger was nothing if not effective.  Born into a world where sex and pregnancy were rarely discussed (much less sex for pleasure and pregnancy by choice) Sanger lived to see the historic creation of the birth control pill and the declaration of birth control as a constitutional right. 

 

Margaret Sanger, then, was not the perfectly packaged hero we read about in historical textbooks, nor the demon described by the right. In “Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion,” we have the unique opportunity to see the activist as she really was: bold, ruthless, compassionate, flawed. And that, I think, is pretty cool.

New Law Benefits Women, Planet

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Happy Contraception Day! Today’s the day that most insurance plans in the United States have to start covering birth control with no co-pays under the Affordable Care Act. As a woman who’s spent a fair amount of effort and money avoiding motherhood, I couldn’t be more pleased.  Birth control can be very expensive, and laws that help increase access are a great thing in my book.

But you don’t have to be a woman of a certain (reproductive) age to benefit from expanded access to contraception. Contraception is good for the women you care about, their families, their communities and the planet. And who could possibly be against that? (Well, plenty of people, but I’ll touch on that later.)

First up: Women. It’s not just the childless by choice who benefit from contraception. Birth control allows women to wait to have babies until they’re ready. When women can plan and appropriately space their pregnancies, they and their babies are healthier. According to the reproductive health gurus at the Guttmacher Institute, “Women whose pregnancies are planned are more likely to receive timely prenatal care. They are less likely to smoke or drink during pregnancy, and more likely to breast-feed once their baby is born.” That’s good stuff.

Using these just got a lot more affordable. (outcast104/Flickr)

The typical American woman only wants two children. Contraception allows families to have the number of children they’re comfortable raising – and give those children the best possible shot at success. A child who’s received good health care and a great education is more likely to grow up to be a productive member of society. That helps entire nations succeed – and in our complex, interconnected global economy, we need as much success as we can get.

So how does contraception help the planet? In one number: 26.8 billion. That’s how many people the United Nations projects will be sharing Earth in 2100 if we don’t slow down population growth. Keep in mind that we have about 7.1 billion people on the planet right now. Picture nearly four times as many people struggling to find (and afford) water, food and energy on a planet where water, food and energy are already scarce in many areas. It’s a recipe for disaster, but it’s an entirely preventable disaster if we take action.

By Guttmacher’s projections, 222 million women in the developing world don’t have access to affordable and appropriate contraception. Here in the United States, nearly half of all pregnancies are unplanned. By expanding access both here (thanks, President Obama!) and abroad (thanks, Melinda Gates, UNFPA, USAID and friends!), we can reduce unintended births, slow down population growth and give the people of 2100 a little more breathing room.

Sounds great, right? Not to everyone, unfortunately. The tentacles of sexism are long and tightly wrapped around societies – including ours. The collective right-wing freakout over the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate is only the latest example. While many of us see women’s equality as an inalienable right, powerful interests see it as a threat. That’s why we can’t rest. We have to keep fighting the forces that would be happy to see all women barefoot and pregnant and confined to making sandwiches in the world’s kitchens.

The Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage is a great step in the right direction, and it will help women. And men. And communities. And right-wingers, even though they claim otherwise. And our planet. And the people of 2100. Here’s hoping the long fight for gender equity is done by then.

Family Planning Needed Here, Too!

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

I have a confession to make: I’m a bit of a Grist fangirl. I really like their straightforward take on important environmental issues of our time.

Children are our future. Let's leave them a nice planet. (JD Hancock/Flickr)

I was especially happy to see Grist weigh in on contraception in the wake of last week’s London Summit on Family Planning. Their take: It’s not just developing countries that lack birth control access:  

If so many young women … are getting pregnant accidentally, then we as a country are doing something really wrong — doing lots of things wrong, actually. Sex ed in our schools is too often crappy or nonexistent. Reliable birth control can be hard to get ahold of and afford. Our whole culture is at once saturated with sex and at the same time afraid of having of having honest conversations about it. Add all that up and the result is that almost half of the nation’s 6 million-plus pregnancies each year are unintended.

Imagine if it became normal for young women in America, when they become sexually active, to start using a long-acting form a contraception — an IUD (they’re making a comeback!) or a patch or a ring or a shot, something you don’t have to think about every day — until/unless they decide they want to have kids. (Yes, they should still use condoms too.) Obama’s healthcare act will help make this more achievable; starting this August, most insurance plans will be required to cover the full cost of birth control. But it’ll take more than changing the rules; we need to change the culture too.

CAN I GET AN AMEN?!!

Currently, there are 222 million women in developing countries who want to delay or end childbearing but who don’t have modern, appropriate contraception. It’s a HUGE problem – for the women, their families, their nations, and the planet. But this Grist post makes an important point – women right here, in our own communities and neighborhoods, also lack access to contraception. That access is crucial if women are able to choose their own futures.

(That’s one of the reasons that I, personally, was so happy about Obama Administration’s rule on contraception, but that’s a post for another time.)

One issue Grist didn’t mention: Those millions of (unintended) American kids also have a big impact on our environment. Americans produce more trash per person than anyone else on Earth. We also use more energy per person than anyone else. We’re No. 1! We’re No. 1!

P.S. No, I don’t hate children. I have seven nieces and nephews under age 6 whom I adore. I just want the best possible life for all kids for generations to come, and that won’t happen if we run out of resources first.

Melinda Gates: Family Planning Advocate

By Alice Taylor, Population Connection Intern

NOTE: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is co-hosting an international family planning summit in London on July 11, World Population Day.

Whenever I’m in the mood to have my mind simultaneously expanded and blown, I turn to TED Talks.  For people unfamiliar with the premise, they are videos of speeches delivered at annual conferences centered on the basic theme of “ideas worth spreading.” Ranging from humorous to heartbreaking, they tackle key issues that impact our world today. 

Melinda Gates talks about family planning. (Gates Foundation)

It is unsurprising, then, that a recent talk focused on the undeniable importance of putting family planning back on the global agenda. In a 25-minute speech, Melinda Gates makes a strong argument for why access to contraceptives -- an issue that has increasingly polarized politicians -- should, at its core, be noncontroversial. It is, in her words, about “giving women a power to save their lives, save their children’s lives, and give their family the best possible future.”

She offers some sobering statistics to underscore her life-saving argument for contraceptives, namely that, out of women experiencing unintended pregnancies, every year:  

• 100,000 die in childbirth.
• Another 600,000 have their baby die within its first month of life.

And yet, she emphasizes that the discussion of family planning is about more than the statistics. It’s about impacting change on the individual level. Impacting change for people like Marianne, a Kenyan woman who explained her desire for contraceptives by stating that, “I want to bring every good thing to this child before I have another.”

And that simple sentiment, borne out of a mother’s love, should not be controversial.

Talking Trash

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Let’s talk trash! This kind, not that kind. Sorry to get your hopes up.

So what does garbage have to do with human population growth? Plenty. The more people on the planet, the more garbage they produce, and we’re already producing A LOT of garbage. One Saturday morning trip to your local landfill will convince you of that fact.

According to a new study out this month from the World Bank:

Currently, world cities generate about 1.3 billion (tons) of solid waste per year. This volume is expected to increase to 2.2 billion (tons) by 2025. Waste generation rates will more than double over the next twenty years in lower income countries.

All this garbage isn’t just ugly. According to the study, it’s also dangerous and expensive:

Locally, uncollected solid waste contributes to flooding, air pollution, and public health impacts such as respiratory ailments, diarrhea and dengue fever. In lower income country cities, solid waste management is usually a city’s single largest budgetary item.

Reducing, reusing and recycling helps reduce the volume, of course. But unless we want our planet to look like this is 2050 or so, one of the best ways we have to cut down on the waste we produce is to slow population growth. How? It’s not that difficult – or even that expensive.

In fact, for every  investment of $100 million in family planning, 3.6 million women are able to choose the size of their families, and 2.1 million unintended pregnancies are avoided. It’s a relatively tiny price tag for better lives – and a cleaner planet, too.

Then after slowing population growth, we just need to get everyone to live like the trash-free Johnson family of Mill Valley, Calif., and WALL-E will have to find a new line of work.

Texas Again Leads the Way?

By Brian Dixon

Texas once again shows the folly of allowing right wing ideology to substitute for good health policy. It has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country and the highest rate of repeat births to teenagers. It is also a state where it is very difficult for teenagers to get birth control.

According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, many doctors in the Dallas region refuse to prescribe contraceptives to teenagers without parental consent. Experts believe that Dallas policy requiring parental consent for birth control at ten school based health centers also applies to them – even though it doesn’t.

Not even young parents can get birth control confidentially – leading to the fact that Dallas leads the nation in repeat teenage pregnancy. Here is real evidence that parental consent rules are utterly counterproductive.

Sadly, a number of conservative organizations and lawmakers are pushing for federal legislation imposing this failed approach on the entire nation. When, and if, health reform comes to the full House and Senate, you can expect many amendments to limit access to reproductive health services for young people – and indeed for all Americans.

Those lawmakers need to hear from you that ideology can’t substitute for evidence when it comes to health policy and that young people need access to confidential family planning services.