Family Planning: Whose Business?

This is a story of a family who live on less than $5 a day.  Mama and Papa have six children.  Mama would have seven but she lost the first one. She’s not sure why he died but she has never had enough food in the house, and with close pregnancy spacing she was not able to breastfeed the child that died for very long.  Even now, there is not much food to go around and so many mouths to feed.  Mama is exhausted. She needs an operation, because of the fistula she developed when having her third baby. Mama and Papa do not have the money for this operation; it would leave them without food to eat and they are already hungry. Their oldest child Mala has to help care for the other children.  Mama would like her to get some education but it is also expensive plus who will help her with the household chores? Papa is too busy in the fields.  Mama wishes she could have less children but doesn’t know how that is possible.  

This narrative is typical for women in developing countries all over the world. Already burdened with the tribulations of being poor and struggling day-to-day, they face further struggles through lack of education, higher risk of death due to childbirth, problems related to under-nutrition, and a vicious cycle that entraps their children into the same ring of poverty. This is not a specific cultural issue; this is an issue of universal female empowerment. It is well-documented that more educated women have less pregnancies and most women with large unplanned families want less children.

Female empowerment is not difficult to achieve. Despite the current negative rhetoric in the United States and United Kingdom around family planning, some developing countries have shown that politicians need not dictate to women about family planning, and that family planning does not equal abortion. Less children mean there are less mouths to feed, so the mother can focus on fully satisfying the nutritional needs of her smaller family as well as herself. It also means she has more time to focus on her economic needs, by working on the side she can supplement the household income and better lift herself and her family out of poverty. This begins to break the vicious circle, as it often enables her daughters to have a chance at achieving an education, which further empowers them to be agents of their own body and life.

This is the side of the story that the U.S. Presidential election rarely touches upon. The right-wing conservatives that make family planning an issue only about abortion directly feed into rhetoric that disables the empowerment of women. This also contradicts policy and evidence-based initiatives that have proved time and time again that family planning increases the quality of life of a woman. The Global Gag Rule, enacted by George Bush Senior and then reinstated by his son, was aimed at abortion but also ended up restricting contraception access. As a result, unintended pregnancies in areas that receive US aid actually increased. How can a policy that contributes to the vicious cycle of women in poverty possibly be empowering for women?

Despite these challenges, we have seen some tremendous gains in women’s empowerment in the last thirty years, even within family planning programs. In the mid 1970’s, Bangladesh had one of the highest fertility rates in the world with the average woman bearing seven children. By 2004, using a coordinated effort of making contraceptives readily available and implementing a peer-to-peer support program that visited women at home to provide follow up, fertility per woman had reduced from an average of seven children to an average of three.  Further success has been seen through NGO’s such as BRAC. By using grassroots measures to influence policy, we can empower women and lift them out of poverty, but family planning is an integral part of the solution. We can’t let the argument about abortion mask gains for universal female empowerment.  

No Woman No Cry: A Review

Model Christy Turlington Burns recently released the documentary film, No Woman No Cry. Inspired to learn more about women's health issues because of the complications associated with her own pregnancy, Christy and a film crew sought to cover some of the major issues affecting maternal and women's health around the globe.

In the film, Christy travels to three different countries to highlight some of the health issues facing women. In Tanzania, she concentrates on women's lack of access to health care. In Bangladesh, she shows that sometimes the problem isn't a lack of available care, but rather the stigma or other problems associated with the care that is available. In Guatemala, she focuses on the dangers associated with a lack of access to family planning solutions. Finally, in the U.S., Burns shows that even in developed countries, women are not given the care they need, often because of a lack of insurance. Such a problem indicates the true lack of concern toward women's health issues most often practiced by health care companies and law makers.

A particular strength of this film is that it highlights not only the various aspects of maternal health, but also that it recognizes the fact that these issues are not isolated to women in developing countries and rural areas within. Even in the United States, maternal health is not always given the coverage or priority that is needed.

Some of the maternal health statistics Burns shares in the film are staggering, but as she later shares in the final interview, she chose to make this film partially as a way to educate her friends on some of the things she has seen and the health challenges that women around the world face. In that regard, she is 100% correct. These are stories that need to be shared. Despite the tireless efforts of organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Every Mother Counts, and Half the Sky, maternal health issues and women's health issues are still largely ignored. The general public needs to become more aware of the challenges women face -- not only domestically, but globally.

As such, Christy Turlington Burns and the Opera Winfrey Network have posted the full length film to YouTube. (Hurry though! It is only streaming for a limited time!) Finally, to learn more about the issues discussed and what you can do to get more involved, visit Christy's foundation, Every Mother Counts.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Entertainment Weekly