Family Planning and Contraceptives

Access to affordable family planning services is a critical component of our reproductive health and rights advocacy, as access to these services equip individuals with the necessary tools to shape their lives and futures. Family planning can reduce maternal mortality by preventing unwanted pregnancies, protect the health of children by allowing sufficient time between pregnancies, and help stabilize population growth. Access to affordable family planning services can also disrupt generational cycles of poverty.

Family planning was named as a human rights obligation more than fifty years ago at the 1968 International Conference on Human Rights. However, despite global commitments to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services (including for family planning), family planning and contraceptive access remains out of reach for millions of individuals across the globe, including North America.