World Contraception Day — Blogging a Global Conversation

Women Deliver, in partnership with the Gates Foundation’s Impatient Optimists, is sponsoring the blog-fest focused on this year’s WCD theme: Your Future. Your Choice. Your Contraception.

The Sixth Annual World Contraception Day is coming up on September 26th. This worldwide campaign envisions a world where every pregnancy is wanted and this year, we’re setting the blogosphere on fire with posts, perspectives and conversations all about contraception. Women Deliver, in partnership with the Gates Foundation’s Impatient Optimists, is sponsoring the blog-fest focused on this year’s WCD theme: Your Future. Your Choice. Your Contraception. They’re reaching out to men and women under 30 from around the world, asking them to share their experiences, hopes challenges and the role contraception plays in their lives. Why just the young people? Because they’re the ones with the most at stake and the ones with their hands on the wheel, driving the future of contraception.

Here at Every Mother Counts, we’re celebrating with Women Deliver by sharing some of our own personal stories and asking our younger readers to chime in with their own. We’ll post them here on our site and Women Deliver will add our links to their blogroll. There’s never been a time when contraception played a more important role in society, healthcare, poverty eradication and history. With so much to talk about and so many divergent conversations going on, it’s crucial we keep access, affordability and policies around contraception in the public eye. It’s also crucial we all get our facts straight to drown out the misinformation that’s becoming so prevalent.

To get perspective bloggers motivated, Women Deliver offers these starter-questions:

1. What do you feel are the key obstacles that make young people uncomfortable about accessing or using contraception? How can we change that?
2. What are some of the most common myths you’ve heard about contraception among your peers? How can we work to debunk these myths?
3. Do you think young people have a right to contraceptive information and services? How can we best inform young people of this right?
4. How do you access information about contraception — through friends, the Internet, health centers? Which of these methods do you find most useful and helpful, and why?
5. Is it different for young men and young women to learn about contraception and access services? How come?

And here are a few of our own:

· Who taught you about contraception? A teacher, friend, sister, your mother, father, counselor or health care provider?

· How old you were when you first learned about it?

· Was it talked about easily in your family or was it a behind-closed-doors topic?

· What was it like to get birth control for the first time?

· Were you already sexually active?

· Where did you get it? A clinic, the drug store, a doctor?

· Have you ever changed methods because you didn’t like what you were using or couldn’t afford it?

· Is your contraception covered by insurance? If not, how do you pay for it?

In addition to these prompts, Every Mother Counts encourages readers to blog from their own inspirations. To make sure you have all the information you need, visit these websites and get the most current information about what’s available, what’s standing in the way, what’s on the table and what role contraception plays in shaping the future for women, men, families, communities and the world:

Women Deliver — Women Deliver is a global advocacy organization bringing together voices from around the world to call for action to improve the health and well-being of girls and women.

Impatient Optimists — Impatient Optimists features the work of the Gates Foundation’s grantees, partners, leadership, and staff, as well as other bloggers, to provide commentary and insight on the issues of global health, global development, and U.S. education.

World Contraceptive Day — — All the facts, options, education, conversations and celebrations in one place

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — Family Planning Overview providing thorough insight about the role contraception plays in poverty eradication and empowerment of girls and women.

Coalition to Protect Women’s Healthcare — — an overview of current politics and policies impacting women’s access to contraception and healthcare from a variety of viewpoints including:

· The National Women’s Law Center

· Planned Parenthood

· NARAL — Pro-Choice America

Email your blog to info@everymothercounts.org and let’s keep the conversation going.