Why family planning is intrinsic for sustainable development

Every day we are faced with a million choices, some that shape our life and others that help us lead a better quality of life. Family planning allows one the choice of being intimate without the fear of pregnancy, so that every child that one may choose to have is wanted and welcomed and if one is faced with an unintended pregnancy, then access to safe and legal abortion services are possible. They ensure that our life is truly ours, and that we have control over our body and our future.

In the 21st century, these choices may seem remarkably matter-of-fact to us, but just three generations earlier, they weren’t available. For my grandmother and for women of her generation, there was no concept of exercising control over one’s fertility. Women got married at a very young age, became pregnant as soon as they entered puberty and repeated this cycle of pregnancy and child delivery interspersed with miscarriages, still-births and infant deaths. My own grandmother gave birth to at least seven children. These seven were the ones who survived, I have no means of determining if there were others in between who she lost. While my grandmother was living her life as a wife and a mother, luminaries such as Lady Dhanvanti Rama Rau and Ava Bai Wadia were advocating for Indian women to have greater control over one’s body. As early as 1930, India established its first birth control clinic which was one of the first of its kind in Asia. In 1949, India established the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), pioneering the movement to reduce maternal mortality. 

While there was a huge need for family planning and birth control clinics had just come into existence, then why was it that the women of my grandmother’s generation didn’t benefit from it? Where was the gap? The women then were not empowered to make decisions about their own lives, their bodies and their future. If my grandmother’s generation had access to the methods of family planning, or at the very least, information about sexual and reproductive health, would our country’s history be written a lot differently? 

In a bid to fill this gap, FPAI broke new ground by drawing women out of the confines of their homes, and provided them an opportunity to get involved in mahila mandals or women’s collectives. These cooperatives empowered women by encouraging them to actively participate in literacy and income-generation programmes, as well as participating in the community. Working as peer educators, these women helped spread information on family planning, its methods and the importance of keeping a gap between giving birth to children, among other things. Soon, members of the collectives began to stock contraceptives, enabling women to easily access various family planning methods. The positive consequences of this approach were widely visible. My mother was able to plan her family. She was able to decide the number of children she wanted and how far apart they should be. My sibling and I were born with a five year gap in between. In just one generation, by placing information and means in the hands of women, a vast change was brought about in the lives of women. 

The impact of these changes happening at the level of the family unit was felt by the nation as well. Informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health gave women an opportunity for enhanced education, participation in public life and engaging in financially productive activities. Many women were able to join the work force and contribute to the country’s GDP. These choices have placed our present and coming generations at a great advantage to benefit from enhanced opportunities to shape and lead lives as they want to, placing the choices firmly in their hands. But not everyone is as fortunate as you and me. 

More than 222 million women around the world continue to lack access to modern methods of family planning. About 90% of them live in developing countries. Meeting family planning needs could avert 218 million unintended pregnancies and 25 million miscarriages in developing countries. If we want to improve the lives of women and place choices in their hands, we have to act now. The world is coming together to set the agenda for sustainable development from 2015 onwards when the Millennium Development Goals come to an end. 
It is important that sexual and reproductive health and rights are included in the next international development agenda, not only as priorities in their own right, but also because they are relevant to a range of development priorities and intrinsic to the overall achievement of sustainable development.

That is why, we at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, have developed Vision 2020, ten calls of action for governments and key stakeholders. Through these calls to action, we are urging governments to commit to health and well being for all, gender equality and women’s empowerment, along with equitable and inclusive quality education - especially comprehensive sexuality education. It is only when sexual rights and reproductive rights are realised; and women and girls have control over their futures and bodies that development will be truly sustainable and meaningful.

Tha author is Regional Director, IPPF, South Asia Region.