UN Declares Birth Control a Human Right, and America Falls Short

[ismnotwasm]

The U.N. has taken a bold and progressive step by declaring access to contraception a human right, proposing that everyone in the world should be able to determine when and if to have children and saying only when that’s the case can a society grow and flourish.

In a State of the World Population report subtitled, “By choice, not by chance: family planning, human rights and development,” the U.N. explains why access to birth control is essential to the societal and economic health of developing countries:

"Studies have shown that investing in family planning helps reduce poverty, improve health, promote gender equality, enable adolescents to finish their schooling, and increase labourforce participation.

When a woman is able to exercise her reproductive rights, she is more able to benefit from her other rights, such as the right to education. The results are higher incomes, better health for her and her children and greater decision-making power for her, both in the household and the community."

The report makes it pretty clear that unwanted pregnancies are bad for women, bad for families, and bad for society. But in many ways, the report fails to recognize the causes for and scale of the lack of access to birth control around the world.

“Today, family planning is almost universally recognized as an intrinsic right,” the report says, as if the lack of access to contraception were something that everyone recognizes as a problem to be addressed, if only everyone could get together and work out the logistics. But in fact, many societies around the world are far from recognizing contraception as an intrinsic right. In the Philippines, where overpopulation and poverty are major problems, the Catholic Church is still exercising its influence on the government to block attempts to provide access to contraception for poor women.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/19272/un-declares-birth-control-a-human-right-and-america-falls-short





Word

[Little Star]

1. The UN has this issue correct...

Because unwanted pregnancies are bad for women, bad for families, and bad for society!

That goes in the category under NO SHIT!

[ismnotwasm]

2. That was my initial reaction

[defacto7]

3. Hear, hear!

Why is this such a difficult concept?

It's plainly logical.

[redqueen]

4. Because policing women's bodies, in every way imaginable,

is a tried and true tradition in patriarchal socieities.