Born of Necessity: The Rationale Behind International Humanitarian Efforts to Meaningfully Increase Access to Family Planning Services
Family planning (“FP”) services are essential to women planning their reproductive futures around the world. Women in lower- and middle-income countries (“LMIC”) have not always had access to the FP healthcare they deserve. Although international human rights organizations have been advocating to increase access to these services for decades, they have not always presented a unified justification for the importance of this care. By pivoting from rationales that stress the importance of preventing overpopulation in LMIC to advocating for increased access to FP services to enable women to make their own reproductive decisions and maintain their health, international organizations are moving in the just direction. However, these organizations are still reluctant to recognize that many factors outside of access to FP services contribute to the decreases in fertility rates seen across many LMIC today. By acknowledging that economic conditions and the availability of pediatric healthcare in LMIC also shape families’ reproductive decisions, organizations working to expand the reach of FP services can more fully come to terms with the fact that fertility rates in LMIC are likely to continue decreasing due to factors other than access to reproductive healthcare. This can empower organizations endeavoring to make FP services more accessible to focus solely on promoting women’s autonomy and health, which are the only appropriate goals for this type of international aid work.