World Contraception Day is For Women’s Rights, But It’s For the Environment, Too

Get Involved: Add Your Own Perspectives At The Conversations For A Better World Blog Series

By: Rachel Cernansky, blogger at Treehugger.com and winner of the Women Bloggers Deliver contest; excerpted from the original post at Treehugger.com

The connection between increased access to family planning and greenhouse gas emissions has been covered here before, but since World Contraception Day was this week and we're still so far from where we need to be on both issues, it's worth another look.

At an Aspen Institute event last week, the Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health reminded the audience that if women around the world had access to family planning, up to 15 percent of the carbon emissions reductions necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change would be achieved...

More than 200 million women who currently want to avoid pregnancy are unable to access family planning methods. It's estimated that more than 40 percent of pregnancies worldwide are unintended, and UN data suggests that meeting worldwide demand for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 percent—and projected world population by 2050 by half a billion. Plus, according to the Council, when women and men have access to voluntary family planning, poverty rates go down and education rates go up...

An issue like this shouldn't need these distinguished voices to lead the call for improved access to family planning, but now that they are taking that lead—for the well-being of women and for the planet—isn't it time for the world to listen?

Read the full post at Treehugger.com

This blog is part of a series on youth perspectives to celebrate World Contraception Day.

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