GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says access to contraception is a universal human right that could dramatically improve the lives of women and children in poor countries.
It is the first time the U.N. Population Fund’s annual report explicitly describes family planning as a human right.
It effectively declares that legal, cultural and financial barriers to accessing contraception and other family planning measures are an infringement of women’s rights.
The report released Wednesday isn’t binding and has no legal effect on national laws.
The global body also says increasing funding for family planning by a further $4.1 billion could save $11.3 billion annually in health bills for mothers and newborns in poor countries.
The U.N. doesn’t count abortion among the measures.
I totally agree. Women will not have economic autonomy and control unless they have the basic right to control their own reproduction. This concept is even more important in lesser developed countries where women have inadequate health services. Women in poor countries often walk miles to clinics and to traveling health care providers in hopes of getting contraception so that they can avoid yearly pregnancy.
It’s about time their plight is universally recognized. How many children can women bear in a lifetime? How does unlimited fertility affect poverty?
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of … well … sex without fear of pregnancy, which we here in the states refer to as Happiness!
SA, well aren’t you in a good mood. 😈
I do think people should be able to have consensual sex without fear of pregnancy.
Sex without the fear of pregnancy is equal to sex without the fear of disease. Both are just plain common sense.
I am not so sure about the sex without the fear of disease. How is that pulled off? There are some dirty birdies out there.
So what the UN is saying is that before there was any contraception that all people were lacking this universal human ‘right’. I just don’t recall that being up there with the pursuit of life and liberty back in the early days of our nation according to history. As a matter of fact people generally had more children to ensure some survived given the lack of the ability to fight diseases back then. If there had been the ‘right’ of contraception, then I’m not sure the colonies wouldn’t have eventually died out. I believe the ‘right’ back then was to procreate, as long as you were married that is. Do you truly believe that lack of affordable contraceptives is why those poor in the inner cities have so many children? My guess is any free contraceptives will be sold on the black market, and the babies will just keep coming. BTW, the only contraceptive that also stops the spread of disease is also one of the least expensive, and so you would think only the extremely poor would likely have STDs, and yet that isn’t the case. The main problem isn’t so much the lack of access to contraceptives, but is more likely the lack of use. The UN is barking up the same tired tree.
SA, the UN declaration is for the entire world. You haven’t read much about this subject? Women will walk for days in undeveloped countries for some of the semi permanent contraceptives.
Back to the United States–you think birth control will be sold on the black market? Why? Why would there be a black market then and not now?
I don’t kn ow that I would call it a right or not. That seems dramatic. However, right also works. Access to contraception makes the difference in poverty and the right to economic independence.
I don’t think I can stress this enough.
As to your inner city question–it has been my eperience that inner city people don’t have as many children as rural people. Inner city people have more access to contraception than people living out in the country.
People had more children because they didn’t know how to control their own reproduction. That’s the only reason. Go to a cemetery sometime…an old one. Check out the tomb stones of how many young women where there in the 1800s. Astounding. In most cases its women who died in child birth.
Let’s take this thread to a logical conclusion.
Contraception is a human right, therefore sex must be a human right.
Rights must be applied equally and in a gender neutral fashion.
Therefore, when I’m trying to pick up women at last call for the purposes of sex and get slapped instead of a happy ending, I’m actually having my human rights violated.
Moon, I have to say that I’m coming around to your point of view. Does anyone know a good lawyer that can help me secure my human rights?
I think you failed the course up on step 2, Cato.
The only human right is contraception. (according to the UN)
Yeah, but who needs contraception if there’s no sex? Cato makes a lot of sense. I thought human rights were those things provided by nature, and not technology. So will cell phones become a human right some day? How about cars?
I guess the concept overpowers the male mind. Well, why not. It isn’t your problem.
What century are you in SA? Seriously?
Sex is a part of human nature, um, that’s how you got here ya know.
Women have a right to have sex and NOT get pregnant if they so CHOOSE. Women in undevelped countries often don’t have either right, to deny sex or to get birth control.