A sex educator in NYC weighs in on birth control, activism and global health on World Population Day

Last week, just in time for the UN’s annual World Population Day, Colorado reminded us of something that should be fairly obvious: family planning works. In Colorado, the teen birth rate fell 40 percent and the teen abortion rate dropped 42 percent when women and teens were granted access to affordable sexual and reproductive health services, including birth control.

I know firsthand the importance of equipping people with information and access to a full range of reproductive health services, including access to safe abortion, so they can make the best health care decisions for themselves. From my work in New York City and time spent with youth programs supported by Planned Parenthood Global in Nicaragua, I have seen some of the most pressing barriers young women and teens worldwide face to living healthier lives: barriers to sexual health education and the inability to plan their pregnancies. It should seem like a no-brainer that women and young people deserve access to these services, no matter where they live. Yet, in too many places around the world, many barriers still exist.

Often in the U.S. and around the world, women, young people and people of color are told that our health care needs don’t matter, or that we don’t deserve access to the care we need. Teens are shamed when they try to seek services, or forced by abstinence-only programs to rely on myths and misinformation when making decisions about their own reproductive health care needs and sexualities. Educators may be biased or not completely informed, showing teens inaccurate and hideous pictures of STIs even when an STI may have no symptoms at all, for example. Or pharmacy staff may incorrectly conflate emergency contraception with abortion.

Misinformation can be the difference between a pre-teen or teen accessing the care they need, or not. When informed sex educators come into classrooms, we’re often the first people who aren’t trying to force our own biases on the students when talking about sex.

Visiting Nicaragua made me realize how hopeless a woman can feel when the world is against her health. But it also opened my eyes to the fact that rather than acting as passive bystanders, communities are responding by building an intersectional, global movement for health equity. Young people and people of color, are calling for deep societal change when it comes to the history of marginalization of many communities.

In Kenya, Planned Parenthood Global’s support allows girls’ soccer clubs to include sex ed and contraceptive counseling as part of team training. Young women who participate in team sports are more confident, stay in school longer, and set more ambitious career goals.

Activists in Nigeria are raising their voices with #BeingFemaleInNigeria, highlighting gender inequality across the country, and calling for progressive change — including sexual and reproductive health and rights — in their communities. In Peru, thousands of young activists are behind the #DéjalaDecidir (#LetHerDecide) campaign, demanding their government decriminalize abortion for survivors of rape. Ahead of and during his trip, activists are calling for the pope to talk about abortion while he travels across Latin America. And in Kenya, local groups are suing the government over failure to provide safe abortion and care training.

Since taking office, President Obama has been a champion for women’s rights and for the rights of different communities that have been historically marginalized. But there’s more he could be doing to support women and girls worldwide — like making clear that women and girls deserve access to care after they’ve been the victims of rape. This World Population Day, as President Obama prepares for his first official visit to Kenya at the end of July, I hope he and the rest of our elected officials take concrete steps to support the work that’s happening in communities around the world to advance sexual and reproductive health care.

There’s lots of global progress to celebrate this World Population Day. These milestones, however, require us to examine the barriers that still exist to the progress of young people worldwide. The U.S. plays a critical role in improving health and addressing gender-based violence around the world, which improves the health and rights of women around the world. Our domestic and foreign policies must address the real-life struggles that women and young people face.

Judith Gomez is a sexuality educator at Planned Parenthood of New York City and a former Global Youth Ambassador with Planned Parenthood Global.