How Family Planning Got Its Groove Back

If you had the opportunity to ask Angelina Jolie or Bill Clinton how hard it is to live down a scandal (not that either of them appear to give it much thought), you would get a hint of how hard it is for even good things to shed a bad rep. Good things like family planning. Basically a simple idea with major benefits, most modern forms of family planning focus on empowering individuals to learn, practice, and plot their reproductive future.

But this modern form had an embarrassing adolescence. Around the middle of the 20th century ballooning numbers of humans all around the world, combined with extreme poverty and hunger, had a lot of powerful people convinced that all the food would be gone before the 21st century, even for the rich (and there was also a little racism thrown in there to add imperial flavor). Accordingly, they went around the world telling poor countries to stop having babies immediately. And, in some cases, didn't explain how to do that very well; and the children in these countries played with condoms like they were balloons.

But, like Robert Downey Jr., sometimes you have to acknowledge your past before you can truly shine. Even when you're an idea like family planning.

What does this have to do with the environment?

Skyrocketing human populations all over the world are still a massive problem, in both industrialized countries and developing countries. The Center for Biological Diversity has made overpopulation one of its key campaigns. The current rate of extinctions compared with the background rate of recorded extinctions continues to be, no joke, 10,000 times more than in any other period, with the only exception the cataclysmic extinction of species that took out the dinosaurs.

This kind of doom and gloom about population growth leads a lot of guys to say things like, "Stop having babies!" And a lot of women to reply, "Easy for you to say!"

This was the old way. It was called "population control;" and in a subtle but important shift, the new way is called "population stabilization." Based on figures from the World Health Organization, almost 40 percent of pregnancies worldwide are unplanned, and 123 million women have an unmet need for family planning.

This one statistic presents a massively overlooked solution to easing some of the extreme pressure on this planet.

Now, if you're used to the old family planning, you probably expect me to say something like 'if we eliminate these accidents' or 'with proper contraception these accidents,' etc. But I won't. I'm not going to suggest that these women who are unexpectedly pregnant should get abortions, because many of them already do. And in the vast majority of developed countries these abortions are perfectly legal, and extremely safe procedures. The number of women who die of abortions in the U.S. is the same as the number of people who die from a bad reaction to penicillin.

However, in most developing countries where abortions are not permitted even in conditions of rape or incest (let alone for something as urbane as a faulty rubber), most of the abortions that take place involve crude devices, a dirty back room, and liberal amounts of personal shame. This dangerous procedure is particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, and complications following it are the leading cause for the region's 30 percent infertility rate. This is particularly onerous in cultures, like the Congo's, where a woman's fertility is still intrinsically tied to her worth; women who can not bear children are often ostracized.

It's not too difficult to spot the solution. 'Legalize abortion, you fools!' says the old family planner. But the new family planner understands that technology can only move as fast as a society's desire to assimilate it. So, until the policies of literally every religion in the Congo change, the bandage here has to come in the form of the Low-Cost IVF Foundation, which is trying to give these abandoned women a second chance.

This is the crux of the difference between population control and population stabilization. Before, family planning was primarily run by rich, white men who felt it was their mission in life to tell women how to have children (or not). Now, the synergy between women empowerment and demographic considerations has produced a new family planning mission, which offers women the opportunity to learn about their bodies and how they can have children (or not). This alone will bring us a long way to the more stable population growth every other species on the planet needs from us.

Yet, how can we hope to offer this opportunity to people who need it abroad, when we are not even willing to offer it to the women who need it in the U.S.? If you'd like to expand family planning, sign the petition below.

Photo Credit: Hamed Saber

References: Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. Chivian, M.D., Eric and Bernstein, M.D., Aaron. Oxford University Press, 2008; The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. Goldberg, Michelle: Penguin, New York, NY. 2009