Why We Should Care about Family Planning this Earth Day
Here is a petition. You can sign this as an international petitioner, or a US resident.
Family planning programs save lives. Yet millions of women around the world lack access to critical reproductive health services like contraceptives, pregnancy and childbirth care, and HIV prevention programs.
Amidst the worldwide financial crisis, few investments bring as positive of a return as family planning. According to a study by UNFPA, every $1 invested in family planning could save up to $31 in government spending on education, food, health, housing, water and sewage services. These programs reduce unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortion, lower HIV infection rates, slow the depletion of natural resources, and foster more peaceful, stable societies.
Fortunately, the Obama administration has proposed a nearly nine percent increase for international family planning and reproductive health services. If appropriated by Congress, the overall funding level for FY2010 would be the largest funding level ever approved for these life-saving programs.
Humanists for Social Justice and Environmental Action supports Human Rights, Social and Economic Justice, Environmental Activism and Planetary Ethics in North America & Globally, with particular reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other Human Rights UN treaties and conventions listed above.