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Support Real Investment in Family Planning: It's Time to Double the Money

Target: U.S. Congress
Sponsored by: Population Connection

What Will $1 Billion Buy? Security. Stability. Survival.

Few investments promise as positive a return as family planning. But in the last decade, U.S. funding for international family planning programs has declined by almost 40%. At the same time, the number of women of reproductive age in the developing world has increased by more than 275 million.

Today, more than 200 million women in the developing world wish to delay or end childbearing but do not have access to modern contraceptives. Lack of access to family planning services contributes to a host of devastating consequences for the entire world: resource insecurity, social instability, and maternal and child death.

If the United States wants to meet these 21st century challenges, then it is time for a change in direction: a return to real investment in family planning.

An investment of $1 billion – roughly double our current spending – represents the United States fair share of the total cost of meeting the existing unmet need for family planning in the developing world, and it is a good investment in a healthy future for all of us.

Sign the petition, and let Congress know that real investment in family planning will reap massive rewards for the whole planet.

deadline: Ongoing...
goal: 20,000

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Dear Representative [Last Name]:

Few investments promise as positive a return as family planning. Every additional $100 million provided for family planning will allow 3.6 million additional women to use modern contraceptives and will result in: 2.1 million fewer unintended pregnancies; 825,000 fewer abortions; nearly a million fewer unplanned births; 70,000 fewer infant deaths; and, 4,000 fewer maternal deaths.

Real investment in family planning will:

Save the lives of women and children and improve quality of life for everyone.
Every year, more than half a million women die of pregnancy related causes worldwide and more than fifty million women suffer serious complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. Nearly all of these deaths and injuries are preventable. In fact, universal access to contraceptives could prevent nearly half of all maternal deaths and a significant proportion of infant deaths. The link between expanded access to family planning and increased maternal and child survival has been proven over and over in countries in every part of the world.

Today, there are 200 million women who would like to limit or space pregnancies but have no access to modern methods of contraceptives. Demand for birth control is projected to increase by 40 percent in the next fifteen years. It's time for the United States to renew its commitment to make a real investment in family planning.

Protect the environment and relieve pressure on natural resources.
Continuing population growth in the developing world contributes to resource scarcity and human suffering. Population growth leads to the destruction of forests, the spread of deserts, the pollution and over-fishing of oceans and waterways, and it is a major contributor to the climate change crisis. The end results are resource depletion, environmental degradation and malnutrition.

Failure to give people the ability to make their own choices about childbearing will make solutions to all of these challenges significantly more difficult to find.

Encourage social stability and decrease conflict.
Resource scarcity and other population pressures place stress on fragile governments and other social structures. Many poor countries struggle to maintain health care, schooling and urban infrastructure in the face of rapid population growth. Countries that lack the means to provide the most basic needs of their people -- food, water, housing education, employment -- are at significant risk of instability and conflict. In countries with significant unmet need for contraceptives, high fertility rates are leading to "youth bulges" -- a high proportion of young people with little or no hope of education and employment.

As you know, the United States was once a global leader in supporting family planning, but our contributions to international family planning programs over the past decade have been inadequate. Indeed, our nation is contributing significantly less than it did fourteen years ago. When inflation is considered, we are providing 40 percent less than we did in 1995.

It's time to reverse this trend. That is why I urge you to support significant new funding and policy language to strengthen family planning programs in the FY '09 State Department, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. Specifically, I ask that you provide a total of $1 billion for family planning in the developing world, including $63.5 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In addition, I urge you to include new policy language to ensure that the UNFPA funding is not withheld by the administration.

To paraphrase former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, family planning builds stronger families, stronger communities and stronger countries. An investment of $1 billion represents the United States fair share of the total cost of meeting the existing unmet need for family planning in the developing world and it is a good investment in a healthy future for all of us.

[Your Comments]

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
[Your Address]

We Support Real Investment in Family Planning!

# 20,050:

7:30 pm PDT, Jun 29, Ceri Jensen, Minnesota
Save the lives of women and children and improve quality of life for everyone.

# 20,049:

7:25 pm PDT, Jun 29, Ashley Rupp, Texas

# 20,048:

7:26 pm PDT, Jun 29, Gail Grabow, Minnesota

# 20,047:

7:08 pm PDT, Jun 29, Joy Perry, Texas

# 20,046:

7:06 pm PDT, Jun 29, Sherry Kennemer, California

# 20,045:

7:04 pm PDT, Jun 29, Cynthia Pierro, Texas
Of course the bottom line is always monetary and a smaller number of children being born means less financial support needed by other countries. It's just common sense to support family planning and access to reliable contraceptives, now. In the end it leaves us with more money for other interests.

# 20,044:

6:38 pm PDT, Jun 29, Shanyn Claycomb, Texas
I support this because it will cut down on abortions, infant deaths and maternal deaths. Those are all important to me and should be important to all people.

# 20,043:

6:30 pm PDT, Jun 29, A Kuenning, Minnesota

# 20,042:

5:57 pm PDT, Jun 29, Robert Scott, Texas

# 20,041:

5:38 pm PDT, Jun 29, D. Jean Tate, Colorado
The keys to global stability and peace are education and adequate food, shelter, and water. Investment in family planning will enable more people to enjoy these necessities.

# 20,040:

5:20 pm PDT, Jun 29, Kialah Smith, Colorado

# 20,039:

5:12 pm PDT, Jun 29, Susana Moening, Colorado

# 20,038:

4:40 pm PDT, Jun 29, Name not displayed, Oregon

# 20,037:

4:17 pm PDT, Jun 29, Barbara Baker, Kentucky

# 20,036:

4:03 pm PDT, Jun 29, George Blevins, Colorado
Anyone with a little common sense and a good view of the world around us can see that the worst treated segment of our human population is the portion of us that are women. I am not of that segment myself but over the years a fair portion of my friends are, and I can see the difference in the way the world reacts. Allowing them the freedom to control how many children they'll spend their lives raising and how often they'll give birth is a basic decency we should insist upon. It's the right we'd demand if we were the ones being mothers. We need to invest in this.

# 20,035:

3:43 pm PDT, Jun 29, Name not displayed, Texas

# 20,034:

3:15 pm PDT, Jun 29, Amanda Edwards, Texas

# 20,033:

3:04 pm PDT, Jun 29, Debra Ganshaw, Minnesota
Our planet is already overpopulated. Any person who does not want to have children should have the right not to do so. It's really just that simple.

# 20,032:

3:00 pm PDT, Jun 29, Name not displayed, Minnesota

# 20,031:

2:52 pm PDT, Jun 29, SuAnn Wade, Wyoming

# 20,030:

2:17 pm PDT, Jun 29, Name not displayed, Minnesota

# 20,029:

2:02 pm PDT, Jun 29, Betsey Bancroft Wu, North Carolina

# 20,028:

1:22 pm PDT, Jun 29, Ruby Armitage, Virginia

# 20,027:

1:00 pm PDT, Jun 29, Janis Epton, North Carolina
No family should be faced with not being able to feed and care for their children.

# 20,026:

12:55 pm PDT, Jun 29, Jason Wilson, California

# 20,025:

12:44 pm PDT, Jun 29, KT Secrest, Colorado
While it doesn't seem to fit into many people's realities, women and children are as important as oil or mice or rats or dogs or wolves or polar bears and many others. It would be nice if this idea would fit into the realities of more Congress folk.

# 20,024:

12:20 pm PDT, Jun 29, Marilyn Faye Castleman, Texas

# 20,023:

12:17 pm PDT, Jun 29, Hardee Klitzman, North Carolina

# 20,022:

11:55 am PDT, Jun 29, DONALD ROGERS, Colorado

# 20,021:

11:49 am PDT, Jun 29, William Barrett, Colorado

# 20,020:

11:47 am PDT, Jun 29, Robb Lee, Texas
These seems like a logical plan to help curb over-population in some key countries within the developing world.

# 20,019:

11:41 am PDT, Jun 29, Patricia Cabarga, North Carolina

# 20,018:

11:39 am PDT, Jun 29, David Beumee, Colorado
Providing contraceptives to the women of developing nations is taking the long view, taking into account the wider picture of relief and impact of future migrating immigrants to the United States. It is in our best interest to spend whatever money is needed to assist in family planning worldwide.

# 20,017:

11:29 am PDT, Jun 29, Roger Grape, Texas

# 20,016:

11:24 am PDT, Jun 29, Marti Garin, Minnesota
There are far too many children that never get adopted and never get the chance to a home or a family or food at least three times a day or schooling or proper health care!

# 20,015:

11:21 am PDT, Jun 29, Shirley Jin, Colorado

# 20,013:

11:07 am PDT, Jun 29, Robert Hupf, Florida

# 20,012:

11:04 am PDT, Jun 29, Gail Tilton, North Carolina

# 20,011:

11:03 am PDT, Jun 29, Eduardo Hope Jr, Texas

# 20,010:

10:58 am PDT, Jun 29, Beverly Griffith, Minnesota

# 20,009:

10:53 am PDT, Jun 29, Jessica Hill, Minnesota

# 20,008:

10:50 am PDT, Jun 29, Greg Brown, Minnesota

# 20,007:

10:49 am PDT, Jun 29, Dvora Krause, Texas
Because it's the HUMANE thing to do!!

# 20,006:

10:40 am PDT, Jun 29, Teri Young, Texas

# 20,005:

10:34 am PDT, Jun 29, Laurinda Vasquez-Falk, Texas

# 20,004:

10:32 am PDT, Jun 29, Rhonda Szostak, North Carolina
If we put a priority on family planning, we would be helping in so many areas of life. It would contribute to less hungry people, less violence due to unsupervised children, and more individual freedom and rights for women. We have the technology to make inexpensive birth control and it's an easy thing to distribute AND take. Let's use it and save money and lives in the meantime! Thank you for thinking long-term

# 20,003:

10:27 am PDT, Jun 29, Reed Palmer, North Carolina

# 20,002:

10:25 am PDT, Jun 29, Lea Salas, North Carolina
Having been raised in an "underdeveloped" country, I have seen the positive impact of family planning of the lives of women there, and certainly even more so here in the US.

# 20,001:

10:18 am PDT, Jun 29, Name not displayed, Colorado
In the U.S., there is supposedly a separation of Church and State. Most, if not all, of the objection to contraception comes from religious groups. If the U.S. is committed to the health of the country and the world, we will help women to choose when to reproduce whether or not it agrees with a belief system. Please encourage countries to stop treating women as expendable baby factories!

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Support Real Investment in Family Planning: It's Time to Double the Money

This petition has been closed.