Last Saturday, 26th September was ‘World Contraception Day’, which PM marked by launching our online petition calling for proper funding for the UN’s Population Fund (UNFPA) to provide for the basic rights and needs of the estimated 270 million women globally without access to safe, modern family planning. That those rights and needs are unmet for so many women in the 21st Century is criminal and absurd. The contraceptive pill invented in the 1950s and commercialised by the early 1960s has been available for decades. Other contraceptive devices and methods have existed for hundreds of years - the condom in various forms for over 5,000 years! Of course, some of those devices and methods were neither safe or pleasant to use – especially for women. Even modern family planning isn’t fool-proof, 40% of pregnancies are unplanned – the first of my two daughters wasn’t a conscious choice (love her, as I do). But there’s no levity in the fact that hundreds of millions of women, including in rich developed countries like the US and UK, still lack agency, choice and rights over their own fertility and bodies. Criminal, when the cost of addressing this unmet need is estimated at just under $70 billion, less than Americans spend on their pets annually. In absurd contrast, the US has withheld critical funding to UNFPA over recent years. Worse, under Trump it reinstated and extended the so-called ‘Global Gag’ rule, cutting approximately $12 billion in overseas aid to any healthcare and development programmes that aren’t opposed to abortion. Certainly, the Trump administration’s active decision to cut funding and curb choice has brought misery to millions, undermining poorer countries’ chances of achieving many, if any of the sustainable development goals. But so does the passive failure of many self-styled progressive, ethical organisations, which choose to ignore the benefits to people and planet from addressing the connected issues of women’s rights and population. The benefits of contraception, access to and choice over their use, have been co-opted by and are still being controlled by men and patriarchal institutions, be they evangelical groups in the US or the Catholic Church – which imposes its outdated, human rights denying dogma on birth-control on millions of the poorest souls in the world. It is both criminal and absurd that an institution run by celibate men should be so preoccupied with and presume to control women's bodies. - Robin Maynard, Director, Population Matters
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