I like Melinda Gates, I really do. Though I don’t know her personally, I feel like she’s a very genuine person who truly cares about her fellow human beings, even if she is wrong about how to help them. It is true that she’s giving an awful lot of money and support to groups and causes that, beneath the veneer of pretty rhetoric, probably care more about economics than they do about people. This on-line petition is for Melinda Gates to reassess the upcoming Family Planning Summit which her foundation is co-hosting and to consider the concerns and agendas of organizations that promote healthy child-birth rather than population control. You can read the petition and sign it for yourself here.
by 
Our group opposes abortion and *coercion* in family planning. And we *support* this family planning summit! Its focus will be on the over 200 million women globally who *want* *voluntary* family planning yet face access barriers. Not everyone who promotes family planning is about rich white people forcing it on black and brown women. The difference between voluntary contraception and coercive population control is like the difference between consensual sex and rape.
But it is a difference that many fail to make–in the name of prolife. Which is too bad, because access to modern, effective methods of voluntary family planning (including but hardly limited to “natural” methods like CycleBeads) prevents over 112 million induced abortions globally each year! And hormonal methods including EC are now known to work *before* fertilization. The evidence is mounting that the same is true for IUDs as well.
More on why we support the summit:
http://www.allourlives.org/all-our-lives-endorses-two-critical-global-declarations-on-family-planning/
@AllOurLives
I notice on your website that you don’t oppose forms of contraception that are possible abortaficient. I also notice that you don’t oppose forms of contraception that degrade the environment. Why the discrepancy?
@AllOurLives
One of the problems with advocating birth control is that “sometimes” birth control fails. It happens. Whether it is because there was a slight mis-use/problem with using it, or because of the statistical chance that all birth control fails “sometimes” (even if only rarely). So – it is a fact – that birth control fails sometimes.
And one of the major reasons for abortion is failed birth control.
When people use birth control they have already decided in their mind they do NOT want a child. If/when the birth control fails, they feel cheated and angry and *justified* in having an abortion because they never wanted that child in the first place.
So by increasing the use of birth control, you also inadvertently increase the number of abortions. More birth control means more people “thinking” they are safe so they tend to engage in more sex. More sex means more pregnancies, even when birth control is used (because in a certain percentage of cases…it fails). And more unintended/surprise pregnancies (especially when they already decided they didn’t want one) means more abortions.
So I am sorry, but if you seriously educate yourselves with the numbers you will realize that if you oppose abortion, it is disingenuous to also advocate for increased birth control. I oppose abortion. So I, for one, oppose the summit.
A somewhat tangential remark…
This line: “Increasing access will enable these women and girls to choose whether, when and how many children to have” from the Family Planning Summit site really struck me as summarizing one of the gross misconceptions that need to be remedied before opposing sides in the abortion debate can reconcile. Children continue to be the sole jurisdiction of “women and girls” in the societal mindset. Until it can be recognized that, just as men and women are equally responsible when consciously entering into a procreative act, they are likewise called to take SHARED responsibility for the results of the action. As long as men are alienated from the decision-making process regarding “whether, when, and how many children to have”, the women/baby-making-machine association that the feminist movement (in my understanding…) opposes can do naught but become further entrenched (albeit less consciously). While, as Andrea said, humanitarian concern in any incarnation is admirable, the Family Planning Summit concerns “Every Woman, Every Child”, but forgets that a woman and child do not constitute the whole family. This lack of equality (and the consequent freeing of men from a sense of sexual responsibility) continues to sadden me and remind me that a paradigm shift will be in order before any material victories can be won for the rights of unborn children.
And of course by Andrea, I meant Jennifer!!
(from Marysia)
JRock: If you would read a bit further on our website, for example the Resources section, you will find our thorough examination of the most current scientific research on the mechanisms of action for methods that are often thought to work after fertilization: hormonal contraceptives, including the pill and emergency contraceptives, and IUDs.
Our well-considered conclusions: There is no evidence that hormonal contraceptives have any post conception mechanisms of action. The evidence is less firm for IUDs, but it definitely trends in the same direction.
We are in fact *very* concerned about endocrine disruptors because they harm unborn children and cause infertility problems like endometriosis (a disease I personally have lived with).
However, the urinary metabolites of hormonal contraceptives are but a tiny, tiny fraction of the possible endocrine disrupting compounds released into the environment, and hardly the most dangerous ones. Water and sewage treatment facilities can be equipped toy filter out hormonal contraceptive metabolites.
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/birth-control-not-major-estrogen-source-in-water/
By far the most numerous and harmful endocrine disruptors come from conventional pesticide laden agriculture and from factory farming of animals for their flesh. But somehow only the compounds that help women have nonprocreative sex are the problem?
If you are that concerned about endocrine disruptors, why not become a vegetarian and cultivate as much of your own food organically as you can (assuming you haven’t done these things already)? (And yes, I do these things myself, if you were wondering.)
By far the most numerous and dangerous
(from Marysia)
Cynthia M: *Of course* all methods of family planning do not work with 100% effectiveness at preventing pregnancy. That’s how I became a mother, and a grandmother.
However, when you consider that 85% of couples will become pregnant if they do not use any prevention method, then access to the right method(s) of family planning is indeed a boon for those who choose to space or limit pregnancies. That’s why I have one child, and one grandchild.
Proper education about birth control needs to include information about the pros and cons of each method, and that includes effectiveness/failure rates, and how to boost the method’s effectiveness. yes, some people have the mistaken belief that contraception is 100% effective, but this is because of poor education.
And your claim of what some call a “contraceptive mentality” where birth control use leads inevitably to abortion does not apply in so many cases. For example, about half of US women whose birth control doesn’t work as intended go through with their pregnancies. I didn’t. my daughter didn’t. Nor did many of the clients I had as a pregnancy counselor. Nor have millions of women worldwide.
As for those who have abortions–maybe they’d go through with their pregnancies too if they were assured of help to do that, and if the prolife movement were not so hostile to those who practice contraception! being branded as a ‘slut” or “unnatural” by prolifers (even if it’s only some) does not exactly mark prolifers as people you can trust to help you with your crisis pregnancy.
It is entirely possible to practice contraception with the consciousness that even with correct and consistent use, conception may occur anyway, and that there are personal familial and societal responsibilities towards that new baby. In fact, for some people, that motivates them to work harder at preventing pregnancy–even as they will accept it if it does happen.
And in actual fact–we discuss them in our blog–the scientific evidence shows quite strongly that access to contraception *reduces* the abortion rate. The “contraceptive mentality” claim doesn’t explan that, either.
(from Marysia)
Megan, you make an excellent point about male responsibility and cooperation in family life. All Our Lives is all for nonviolent, equal/equitable male involvement. Many family planning and reproductive health programs worldwide have become more conscious of the need to promote this and do so. our directory of abortion-reducing resources has an entire section on Male Responsibility.
However, it is also important to be aware of just how little control a very large proportion of women and girls have over *their own* bodies. (Of course, during pregnancy, there are two bodies and lives to consider.) They do not have freedom to choose their partners or choose no partner at all, to have sex or not have sex, to prevent pregnancy when they choose to or to go through with a pregnancy.
To emphasize family planning rights as women’s and girl’s rights is often an effort to right these wrongs. Of course this is not the *only* thing necessary to bring about equality between men and women and for children born and unborn. But it’s not a reason to *oppose* voluntary family planning freedom for women and girls.
CynthiaM: A correction. I wrote “I didn’t. my daughter didn’t. Nor did many of the clients I had as a pregnancy counselor. Nor have millions of women worldwide.”
I meant we didn’t have abortions.
Apologies for the mistakes. Typing on a mobile device.