Because we spoke so loudly, opponents of reproductive health access demonized and smeared me and others on the public airwaves. These smears are obvious attempts to distract from meaningful policy discussions and to silence women's voices regarding their own health care.
When we conducted focus group interviews in the first municipality in Brazil before initiating the pilot project, a woman commented: Getting an appointment in the public sector municipal health services is like "winning the lottery." I would like to make it possible for many women and men in Latin America to win the lottery and receive the type of reproductive health services they so urgently need.
In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.
This year, the United States renewed funding of reproductive healthcare through the United Nations Population Fund, and more funding is on the way. The U.S. Congress recently appropriated more than $648 million in foreign assistance to family planning and reproductive health programs worldwide. That's the largest allocation in more than a decade - since we last had a Democratic president, I might add.
High level policy makers and program managers do not normally listen to the voices of local people, local providers and local program managers when they make decisions about contraceptive introduction or other aspects of program development in reproductive health.
If instead policy makers and program managers participate in an interdisciplinary assessment team, make informal visits to local families and have in-depth conversations with local providers and health authorities, the real needs and complex challenges of organizing good reproductive health services become apparent.The first country that implemented this participatory program of assessment, research and policy development was Brazil. I was one of the outsiders who provided support to the initiative.
Planned Parenthood's entire existence is basically based on keeping people in the dark through euphemism. You don't call it genocide, you call it reproductive health. So that's why Planned Parenthood has - nobody really thought.
I have consistently supported laws ensuring women are able to make their own health care decisions, and I will continue to protect womens access to contraceptives and reproductive health care.
We also need to make sure women can be in charge of their reproductive health. We can't defund places like Planned Parenthood, where women can go for all kinds of healthcare services. While reproductive rights span much further than the pro-life/pro-choice debate, Donald Trump has actually said he wants to "punish" women for having abortions. And Mike Pence is quite possibly the most anti-choice vice presidential candidate in history.
Our practical purpose is to facilitate expansion of service innovations on a larger scale to improve access to, and the quality of reproductive health care. We are very grateful to have received support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue our work.
If policy makers and program managers participate in an interdisciplinary assessment team, make informal visits to local families and have in-depth conversations with local providers and health authorities, the real needs and complex challenges of organizing good reproductive health services become apparent.
I personally think that people should get the book because it is like a blueprint. It shows you the work that needs to be done if we're ever going to get economic equality, health, reproductive health, violence. I mean, it's every category.
Iran's experience shows that when religious scholars and UNFPA work together to solve reproductive health issues, there can be excellent results.
The world today has 6.8 billion people...that's headed up to about 9 billion. If we do a really great job on vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 to 15 percent.
Ironically, as some people become harder, they use softer words to describe dark deeds. This, too, is part of being sedated by secularism. Needless abortion, for instance, is a "reproductive health procedure, . . ." "Illegitimacy" gives way to the wholly sanitized words "non-marital birth" or "alternative parenting."
Yes, we've cut the maternal mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don't count for much if they're not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice - not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.
From the woman who musters the courage to ask her husband to wear a condom, counter to cultural pressures, to the woman in Parliament who demands access to affordable reproductive health services for women who need them most, daring knows no scale or status.
I would like to make it possible for many women and men in Latin America to win the lottery and receive the type of reproductive health services they so urgently need.
Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale.
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