Right now, all over the world, women are having sex.
Some take the pill. Others may fish condoms out of a drawer. But too many women, especially in developing countries, are still denied their basic human right to choose if, when and how many children to have.
On July 11, World Population Day, health organizations and heads of state will meet in London at the Family Planning Summit 2017 to assess progress toward improving access to family planning for women and girls around the world. As the day approaches, we must remember that protecting women’s reproductive rights is not about reducing population, easing resource burdens, reducing carbon emissions, or enhancing conservation efforts. It’s about helping women take control to which they are entitled.
Surprisingly, not everyone agrees. The editorial by author Eugene Linden, Do you remember the demographic bomb? It’s always ticking, exemplifies a dangerous and persistent type of demographic alarmism that sees birth control not as a right, but as a means to stem the “rising tides of people” fleeing environmentally ravaged countries and knocking on the doors of the world. ‘West. Forget colonialism, structural adjustment, racism, AIDS. For struggling countries like Lesotho, according to Linden, “probably the biggest problem was, and is, the obvious: too many people.” Less explicit, but no less harmful, is the growing narrative that empowering women and girls is one of the most cost-effective ways to solving the climate crisis: When women are empowered, they have fewer children, and fewer children means fewer emissions.
This is an old and stupid argument. Presenting family planning in developing countries as a solution to lack of resources, migration, or rising carbon emissions not only unfairly shifts the blame for these crises onto poor women, but also misdiagnoses the problem. . These are not population figures, but global inequalities — in the consumption of resources, access to health care, political power, etc.
Rich countries absorb the most resources and release the most greenhouse gases that warm the climate. From 1980 to 2005, rich countries accounted for 29.1% of emissions, but only 7.2% of population growth. Poor countries, on the other hand, accounted for 52.1% of population growth, but only 12.8% of emissions. The overconsumption of carbon-intensive products, largely by industrialized countries, is causing climate change and its effects, not high fertility rates in developing countries.
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In fact, high fertility rates reflect the same resource and power imbalances that allow climate change to set such an uneven pattern of destruction across the globe. Just as global inequalities are burdening developing countries with the costs of climate change, gender inequalities and unequal access to information and contraceptives deprive women and girls around the world of control over their own fertility.
But if demographic alarmism helps poor women gain access to contraception, is that so bad?
When people say “overpopulation” will destroy the planet, what they mean is that the poor are making it harder for the rich to live the life they have learned to deserve. When we blame female fertility for resource scarcity or climate change, we divert our attention from these glaring inequalities. And we allow the most powerful people and governments to shirk responsibility for addressing climate change, food insecurity and other environmental crises.
Moreover, framing access to contraception as a means to any end, no matter how noble, is dangerous. It ignores the fact that reproductive choice is a fundamental right, and it risks turning women’s bodies into tools to solve problems they didn’t cause. Just as entrenched inequalities determine “who eats first and who eats the worst”who lives in the most dangerous places in the world and calls 5and Avenue d’accueil, it determines who can decide if, when and how many children to have. Unless we challenge these inequalities, the poor will remain just as vulnerable to the devastating effects of poverty and climate change as they are now, and they will not have enough food to feed their families, no matter or their size.
So, instead of wringing our hands about “overpopulation”, let’s tackle the inequalities that sustain poverty and drive migration, climate change and high fertility. But let’s do it without blaming the poor and without undermining women’s rights to reproductive self-determination.
At CARE, our work in the North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo shows that it is possible to realize these rights for women and girls, even in some of the world’s most challenging regions. There, CARE helped the government train providers on high-quality family planning counseling and services, including youth-friendly service delivery. This resulted in dramatic increases in modern contraceptive access and use. Our common cause is to work to expand equality and freedom for women and girls no matter where they live, so let’s join forces to rid the planet of the injustices that are the real threat to our common future. Because if women and girls in poor communities around the world had equal access to education, resources, and political power, and yes, family planning, they could very well change the world.
Christine Galavotti is Senior Director of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights at CARE USA and theLily CARE global work to help 100 million women and girls realize their sexual, reproductive and maternal health rights by 2020. Casey Williams is a PhD student in literature at Duke University and a freelance writer.