It’s Not Rocket Science
07.20.12 – In a recent opinion piece from the International Herald Tribune, more evidence of the benefits of low-cost birth control were clearly laid out. The writer takes a look at how contraception has been out of reach for women in the Eastern European country of Georgia for years (because of its expense and narrow political views) and how that has impacted their lives.
Indeed, a 2005 survey on reproductive health in Georgia found that women here had on average 3.1 abortions in their lifetimes—a number that at the time earned Georgia the dubious honor of having the highest documented abortion rate in the world. (The rate in the United States today is .02.) The situation since then has improved considerably. According to a 2010 survey, Georgian women were having on average only 1.6 abortions in their lifetimes—a 48 percent decline over five years earlier.
Why the remarkable drop? The simple answer is that women in Georgia finally got the pill. That’s largely thanks to a campaign funded by U.S.A.I.D. and the United Nations Population Fund (U.N.F.P.A.) that educates doctors and nurses here, markets birth control on television and subsidizes the cost of condoms, pills and I.U.D.s.
This is a development success story that underscores a simple truth: more contraception equals fewer abortions.
But too often, still, myopic politics continue to stand in the way of that equation, endangering women in the process. Georgia’s current fertility rate—which is below replacement, despite a recent climb to two children per woman—is a hot political issue. Consequently, the government refuses to cover contraception in the state-funded healthcare program for the poor.
We’d add (and this is important) that access to the full range of reproductive health care information and safe services—including abortion and pre-natal care, not just birth control—is central to a woman’s fundamental well-being and place in the world. Without it, women are at needless risk of unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and even death or injury from pregnancy and childbirth.
Read the complete story at the International Herald Tribune >,