In her continued fight for women’s reproductive rights around the world, Melinda Gates attributed her personal and professional success to birth control in an passionate essay published in Fortune magazine Tuesday.
“It’s no accident that my three kids were born three years apart—or that I didn’t have my first child until I’d finished graduate school and devoted a decade to my career at Microsoft,” Gates wrote in the article.
“My family, my career, my life as I know it are all the direct result of contraceptives. And now, I realize how lucky that makes me.”
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The article coincides with the Gates Foundation renewed pledge to provide 120 million women around the world with access to contraceptives by 2020 – a goal set in 2012 by Family Planning 2020, a coalition of organizations, including the Gates Foundation, working to provide women in the developing world with birth control.
The Gates Foundation has been involved in the push for reproductive rights in the developing world for years. According to the New York Times, the foundation has contributed more than US$1 billion to the cause.
But, as Gates noted, the fight for reproductive rights continues to face challenges thanks to recent U.S. policy changes.
“There are 225 million women in the world who do not want to get pregnant but do not have access to modern contraceptives. A recent change to U.S. global health policy will soon drive that number up even higher,” she noted.
WATCH: The Trump administration reinstated a ban on providing federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option
Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated a “global gag rule” policy that prevents groups that offer abortion and reproductive health care services from receiving funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development — even if they don’t use American aid money for those particular services. The policy also bans U.S.-funded groups around the world from discussing abortion.
Family planning advocacy groups have widely condemned the decision, warning the gag rule will spark an increase in unsafe abortions and maternal and newborn deaths.
Previous research about the gag order, conducted by the World Health Organization, has connected it to spikes in unplanned pregnancies as well as abortion rates in sub-Saharan Africa.
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“Contraceptives are often a key determining factor in whether a woman is able to lift her family out of poverty. Research shows that women with access to family planning tools not only tend to have fewer children, they also tend to have higher individual and household incomes,” Gates said.
“If you care about giving children a chance at a healthy future, if you care about giving women a chance to take their families from poverty to prosperity, and if you care about giving poor countries the chance to become rich ones, then you must care about contraceptives.”
Some government bodies have already been outspoken about Trump’s decision to reinstate the gag order. Denmark’s development aid minister says his country would give an extra 75 million kroner (C$14 million) to organizations affected by the order.
READ MORE: Canada, Netherlands exploring global safe abortion fund to counter Trump
The Dutch government has also said it wants to start an international fund to finance access to birth control, abortion and education for women in developing countries. Canada’s minister for the Status of Women has also been in contact with the Netherlands to discuss the issue.
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