Women's Rights & Issues
Related: About this forumNearly Half of All Pregnancies Worldwide are Unintended and 60% of those end in abortion
Nearly Half of All Pregnancies Worldwide are Unintended and 60% of those end in abortion
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unseen-crisis-nearly-half-all-pregnancies-worldwide-unintended-jalan
UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, is sounding the alarm on a human rights crisis that has ramifications for women, societies, and the world. Its 2022 State of World Population report, Seeing the Unseen: The case for action in the neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy, estimates that nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended totaling 121 million unintended pregnancies each year. The report builds on new data from the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization (WHO) that outlines the first-ever estimates of unintended pregnancy and abortion at the country level, highlighting major disparities across 150 countries in access to quality sexual and reproductive health care.
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Myriad factors, rooted in gender inequality, are stripping people of their fundamental decision-making power over their bodies. This includes a lack of quality sexual and reproductive health care and information, including preferred methods of contraception, as well as harmful societal norms or stigma around reproduction and bodily autonomy, intimate partner or sexual violence or coercion, and harmful laws and policies. These factors are compounded for people who are already marginalized due to identifiers such as age, marital status, rural or urban dwelling, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, income and education level, or ability.
Unsurprisingly, then, countries with higher rates of gender inequality had higher rates of unintended pregnancy, with just 57% of women able to make their own decisions over their sexual and reproductive health and rights. In a world where nearly 1 in 3 young women are giving birth before the age of 20, can a person imagine a life where pregnancy is a choice, not a given? Do their reproductive intentions even matter?
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The true scope of the impacts of unintended pregnancy are wide-ranging and impossible to quantify. What we can attempt to measure, however, is alarming: More than 60 percent of unintended pregnancies end in abortion, and nearly half of those abortions are unsafe, and directly lead to five to 13 percent of all maternal deaths worldwide what the report calls a public health emergency.
niyad
(119,994 posts)for women on so many levels worldwide is horrifying.
CousinIT
(10,218 posts)Response to CousinIT (Reply #2)
Hugh_Lebowski This message was self-deleted by its author.
CousinIT
(10,218 posts)But you did go straight on the defensive. Hmm.
Response to CousinIT (Reply #4)
Hugh_Lebowski This message was self-deleted by its author.
ShazzieB
(18,688 posts)But since you evidently can't be bothered to go there, here's an excerpt that may give you at least an inkling of why your comment was, well, not really helpful, to put it nicely.
Myriad factors, rooted in gender inequality, are stripping people of their fundamental decision-making power over their bodies. This includes a lack of quality sexual and reproductive health care and information, including preferred methods of contraception, as well as harmful societal norms or stigma around reproduction and bodily autonomy, intimate partner or sexual violence or coercion, and harmful laws and policies. These factors are compounded for people who are already marginalized due to identifiers such as age, marital status, rural or urban dwelling, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, income and education level, or ability.
Unsurprisingly, then, countries with higher rates of gender inequality had higher rates of unintended pregnancy, with just 57% of women able to make their own decisions over their sexual and reproductive health and rights. In a world where nearly 1 in 3 young women are giving birth before the age of 20, can a person imagine a life where pregnancy is a choice, not a given? Do their reproductive intentions even matter?
I would also like to point out that Womens Rights & Issues is a "group," not a forum, which has a specific meaning at DU, in that "Groups often serve as safe havens for members who share similar interests and viewpoints. Individuals who post messages contrary to a particular group's stated purpose can be excluded from posting in that group."
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1138
Furthermore, the Statement of Purpose for this group is as follows: "This group is a place for members to discuss all issues affecting women in the U.S. and globally. Our goal is to keep this forum friendly, polite and respectful. If you agree with the necessity of women's rights advocacy and believe in furthering the legal & cultural rights of women then this is the place for you." https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=about&forum=1138
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think going out of the way to point out that a woman (as well as a man) is involved in every unplanned pregnancy (DUH) does anything to promote women's rights advocacy. It is also, in my view, not particularly conducive to keeping this group "friendly, polite and respectful." Just saying.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)Thanks for the reminder this was in a group not a forum, I get your point about that.
But saying that 'men cause 100% of unwanted pregnancies' really not what the article is asserting, and it's only true insofar as men are 'involved' in every case, just like women are 'involved'.
It's also a bit of an aggressively anti-male thing to say, but I guess it's fine in the Women's Group. I didn't actually notice at first which forum/group this article was in. I use the Latest Threads page to navigate the site and choose threads. My bad on that one.
ShazzieB
(18,688 posts)I've seen it happen to others, too. You have a lot of company.
Thanks for your fair-minded response.