Created by Eva Killingstad and Talya Kohan-Gaffar
Universality Aspect
Reproductive Health is a Universal Issue
Here's Why:
Access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights is a basic human right, but the global status of girls and women reproductive health and rights is disturbing: 214,000,000 women worldwide want, but cannot get access to contraception; more than 800 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy's and childbirth.
Some things stopping women and girls from getting reproductive education includes discrimination, stigma, restrictive laws, policies, and entrenched traditions.
In The United States:
In the US, the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade established the legal right to abortion; however, these laws set to protect people with uterus' are being slowly taken away. State legislatives and executive bodies continue to battle over access to abortion, including parental consent and mandatory waiting periods. The change in this abortion law has significantly impacted lower-income women (and those who can reproduce) who struggle with the financial burden associated with reproductive health laws. According to the Guttmacher institute, average cost for a year's supply of birth control is the same as 51 hours of work for women who make minimum wage at 7.25 an hour.
Around The World:
Worldwide, between 60 and 80 million couples suffer with infertility. However, at the same time, there is an alarming unmet need for contraception and reproductive education in developing countries. Unsafe abortion causes between 115,000 and 204,000 deaths annually per year. Additionally, female genital mutation continues to exist in around 40 countries. About half a million women die per year due to complications with pregnancy and lack of reproductive health care. Moreover, many developing countries do not have access to reproductive/sex education. Therefore, cases in STD's are higher and thus death rates become higher. Death for child or mother is more likely during birth in countries without proper education or health care.
Word's from around the world!
"You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion”
– Hillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State
"To be engaged in the economic sphere, to create income, to contribute to family health and well-being and to the country’s development, we must have family planning services.”
– Roman Tesfaye, Ethiopia’s First Lady
"It is only when a woman is economically empowered that she can negotiate at household level with her husband about the number of children that body of hers can have.”
– Joyce Banda, Malawi’s first female President