World Contraception Day 2013
WCD is a worldwide campaign with a vision for a world where every pregnancy is wanted, Its mission is to improve awareness of contraception to enable young people to make informed decisions on sexual and reproductive health.
Photo Credit: Alice Proujansky/Every Mother Counts
It’s World Contraception Day once again and it feels like no time at all since we honored this event a year ago today. Last year on September 26 (WCD), we blogged about having a global conversation about the value contraception provides to women’s lives and the ability for women and couples to plan when or if they’ll have children. Here we are, a year later and we feel it’s more important than ever to keep the conversation going.
WCD is a worldwide campaign with a vision for a world where every pregnancy is wanted, Its mission is to improve awareness of contraception to enable young people to make informed decisions on sexual and reproductive health. Under the motto “Your Future. Your Choice. Your Contraception”, WCD 2013 focuses on empowering young people to think ahead and build contraception into their future plans, in order to prevent an unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection (STI).
At Every Mother Counts we are focused educating others on the challenges and solutions affecting mothers and the people who love and depend on them. We know that the safest pregnancy a woman has is the one that never happened. Every pregnancy, whether planned or unplanned, wanted or not holds potential health risks. Those risks rise dramatically depending on the age of the mother, the number of pregnancies she’s had, how close those pregnancies are together and the mother’s ability to support her own physical, social and financial wellbeing. When women have no access to safe contraception pregnancies come too often, too close together and at times in women’s lives when another pregnancy, labor, birth and recovery are inconvenient at best and life-threatening at worst.
As we spend our last full day attending UNGA/CGI events, where the conversation touches down again and again on the hopes, contributions and rights of girls and women around the world, we’re reminded how fortunate we are to live in a country where many women have access to a wide range of contraception options. We’re grateful that recent changes in insurance laws make it even more affordable for many women and families. We’re reminded though, again and again, that we still live in a country and world where a woman’s right to decide for herself if and when she’ll have children is far from guaranteed.
Photo Credit: Clancy McCarty, Haiti 2013
This basic and essential element of reproductive healthcare has been a focal point of countless contentious political debates this year and even as insurance law is making it easier for women to purchase contraceptives, women who are uninsured have fewer options than ever. We’re grateful though that at least here in the US, we’re free to discuss it and that many, but not all women can find a way to get the contraceptive protection they need. That’s why we need to keep talking, blogging, debating and listening because in order for girls and women here in the US and around the world to have control of their lives, health and futures, they must have control over their own bodies.
