Improving Access For Voluntary Family Planning

plays an important role in providing woman with an affordable birth control.(overview pg.2) We depend on our insurance to pay for our health necessities. As a result unplanned pregnancy cost the american public roughly $9 billion each year.(pg.9 should teens have access to BC) Although many forms of birth control are available, such as condoms which are easily to attain. Statistics show that many teens who are sexually active do not use contraceptives of any kind.(pg.9 should teens have access to BC) Among these are the incidence of miscarriages, and abortions.(pg.8 should teens have access to BC) Preventing pregnancy is affordable, but is also a

A total of 730,322 abortions were reported from the Centers for Disease Control in 2011. This could easily be resolved with proper usage of birth control. But the fact of the matter is that only 62% of women are actually using proper birth control, now this may seem like a lot of women, but there is 158.6 million women in the United States alone so 58.5 million are currently not on any birth control which is a huge amount of women. Birth control needs to be free and accessible, because the benefits of having women on birth control easily outweigh any of the cons that may come. My goal for this paper is to talk about the pros of having free and accessible birth control, which would be lower abortion rate, lower teenage pregnancy rate, and the many health benefits. I will also touch on the opposing side of this argument, which will be that, it will be too expensive, that abstinence is key, and that if birth control became free and accessible women would no longer go the doctor.

Of the number of women who obtain contraception care at clinics, more than one-third of them use Planned Parenthood (Marcus). With the removal of these services, there would be a drastic increase in the number of unplanned pregnancies. Each year, Planned Parenthood prevents an estimated 516,000 unexpected pregnancies (Strickland). Not only would the number of unplanned pregnancies increase, but the awareness of sexual education would decrease, as Planned Parenthood provides sex education to 1.5 million people each year (Strickland). While it is easy to assume that women would be able to get access elsewhere, it is simply not feasible. The magnitude at which Planned Parenthood extends its services would not easily be matched. The inability to provide contraception to the women who would go unprovided would create a detrimental problem in the government that is trying to defund the

* Family planning campaigns incorporating social marketing techniques have been successful in countries around the world. A program in Sri Lanka recently helped avert over 60,000 unwanted pregnancies in a three-year period.

More than half of all women of reproductive age in the United States use some form of contraceptive (Daniels, Daugherty, and Jones, 2014). Of those, most are on the oral-contraceptive pill. Even with new regulations in place to supposedly increase access to preventive services, there is still an issue of women who are sexually active, do not wish to become pregnant within the next year, and who are not using a form of contraception. Clinician and facility based barriers are the largest deterrent for these women. By removing the barriers to contraceptive counseling and services, women will have greater access to their health.

Women in today’s society have never known a time when contraceptive options were not available to them. As a general statement, acquiring some sort of contraceptives whether it is the pill, patch, condom, emergency contraception, or another of the many types of birth control is not difficult with the many options available to women today. However, backtrack to the early 1900’s and the story was completely different. In 1916, Margaret Sanger made contraceptive history by opening the first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. The fight for birth control began. It was not until years later in 1960 that the birth control pill was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and since then many other varieties of birth control have made their way into the market (Kim & Wasik, 2011). Today, thanks to those like Margaret Sanger who fought for contraceptives, women and couples who wish to avoid pregnancy have more choices than ever before. (Egarter et al, 2013; Perry, 2015).

government-funded contraceptive services, almost 9 million women have used the affordable services to prevent what could have been 2.2 million unintentional pregnancies; of the unplanned pregnancies, there would have been 50 percent unprepared births and 35 percent abortions (Sonfield). Planned Parenthood extends itself as a safe and accepting place for women, providing some of the 8.9 million women with the right type of contraceptive services at an affordable cost or for free. It alleviates the worry of unintentional or unsafe pregnancy, acting as a supportive group for whatever issue a woman is facing. Its services help to prevent the last resort of abortions while educating patients on proper sexual health. Obtaining birth control services no longer deserves to be thought of as a shameful act but rather an equipping method for women to decide their future based on their own bodies and current situations. As mentioned by Guttmacher Institute professors, research has shown that women who receive birth control pills at an age of 18 over 21 are benefited in their scholastic achievements, job placements, incomes, and lasting marriages

Family Planning is using contraception. By using contraception, the limit on sizes of families through spacing is regulated and the prevention of pregnancies are controlled. Family planning does not just protect the well-being of women, but also the well-being of communities as well. To increase the chances of healthy babies and planned pregnancies, there are family planning services for people who want education on family planning and healthy families. Successful family planning services should include

The 21st century would bring a new surge towards equal rights for women. Issues such as abortion and reproductive rights, wage rights and discrimination based on gender, are just a few of the issues women are facing in the 21st century. The National Organization for Women reports women should have access reproductive health and family planning services, including abortion. Abolishing the ability for women to access those health services violates a “fundamental human right” notes NOW. According to NOW, a severe and continuing shortage of family planning services and contraceptive products leads to an estimated 76 million unplanned pregnancies worldwide, according to the U.N. Population Fund (2005). Not granting these services to women leaves them at a huge risk. An estimated seventy-eight thousand women die each year around the world.

During the mid and late 1960’s in United States, women, especially low-income women, had more children than they preferred. Research attributed this rise to the lack of access to contraceptives especially in lower income families leading to the difference in the economic affordability of women to have more children than desired. Evidence also showed unintended pregnancies or closely spaced pregnancies to pose adverse maternal and child health outcomes such as delayed prenatal care, premature births, and unfavorable mental and physical health effects on children. Additionally, unintended pregnancies, especially among teenagers, led to more poverty, increased dependence on publically funded services, incomplete education, and decreased ability

However, it is incorrect to assume that cutting funding to programs like Medicaid and Planned Parenthood are the way to save money. In fact, by providing care which included birth control, family planning clinics alone “helped prevent 2.2 million unplanned pregnancies in 2010” (Culp-Ressler). This study shows that it is more cost effective to supply birth control freely than it is to financially aid women in properly caring for unanticipated children. For example, in 2011, unplanned pregnancies nationwide totaled an average of $11 billion in costs for American taxpayers. However, reducing unintentional pregnancies averages to a total of $5.6 billion in savings (“Nation Pays Steep”). Therefore, a viable solution to attain these kinds of savings is it to prevent these accidental pregnancies in the first place which free birth control can do. Furthermore, cutting funding to Medicaid and family planning services is ineffective and additionally reduces the chances of a woman to attain birth control.

One way I think we could prevent abortions is to provide family planning services to

As one of the poorest countries globally, Sierra Leone struggles to improve their standard of maternal health. With one women dying every two minutes due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth, those who become pregnant in developing countries face extreme challenges (everymothercounts.org). Whether it may be ineffective medical care or noxious diseases such as HIV, "One in every 21 women is at risk of death in childbirth" (the guardian.com). Professionals in other countries are working towards providing educational opportunities for women and their families so that they may care for themselves. The prevalence of contraception, being around 11 percent, is extremely low in comparison to other nations but is one of the most influential aspects of the cultural

This paper explores fifteen published articles that report the results from research conducted on online (database) relationships and their relationship to the scientific perspective of birth control. The articles are varying on their definitions and uses of birth control methods; they include types of birth control methods, women’s views towards birth control methods, problems with adolescent or teen pregnancies, overpopulation through unplanned pregnancies, etc. The main purpose of this paper is to make people aware of birth control options, accessibilities, and advantages and disadvantages. The major problem identified in this paper includes lack of public awareness about types of contraception and accessibilities. The solutions include

Women’s reproductive rights are a global issue in today’s world. Women have to fight to have the right to regulate their own bodies and reproductive choices, although in some countries their voices are ignored. Abortion, sterilization, contraceptives, and family planning services all encompass this global issue of women’s reproductive rights.