I've always been appalled by doctors sterilizing women without their permission. Uzbekistan is doing it today and many other countries have forced sterilization for specific regions and races within their country. One of my friends recently switched birth control and we were looking up different types of birth control. I read about the progesterone shot that said doctors used to give the shots as a way to prevent African Americans from having children without them knowing. Melinda Gates gave a TEDX talk where she discussed the desire of people to have smaller families as a way to have an increased standard of living. If you have fewer children, you can afford to pay for all of their educations, you can afford to feed all of them, and you can continue to work because you don't have to stay home to take care of so many children. She urges increased access to birth control for all women so they can decide to have smaller families. People do not want to be sterilized, nor do they want to have children who they cannot support.
Mechai Viravaidya discusses birth control in Thailand with a more humorous twist. He discusses Thailand's campaign to decrease population growth by providing easier access to condoms. There is a super hero named Captain Condom who visit universities, the police hand out free condoms on the streets and they use witty advertising to encourage people to use condoms as a way to control population naturally. He also says he will be handing out condoms after his talk but warns "these are Thai sized, so be very careful".
So, use birth control, unless you want a baby now.
S
There's also the issue of birth control being so expensive. Here's an article about the cost of birth control and the toll it takes on some women.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.good.is/post/on-minimum-wage-it-s-a-lot-of-money-poor-women-talk-about-birth-control
Choosing between birth control and food should not happen as often as it does if we want to help these women maintain a quality of life.