Breaking: Women take contraception because it makes their lives better

It’s World Contraception Day, and Guttmacher has come out with a U.S. study finding the obvious, but still necessary to point out: Women take contraception because it makes their lives better.

New evidence confirms what most people already believe: Women use contraception because it allows them to better care for themselves and their families, complete their education and achieve economic security, according to “Reasons for Using Contraception: Perspectives of U.S. Women Seeking Care at Specialized Family Planning Clinics,” by Jennifer Frost and Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute.

“Women value the ability to plan their childbearing, and view doing so as critical to being able to achieve their life goals,” says study author Laura Lindberg. “They need continued access to a wide range of contraceptives so they can plan their families and determine when they are ready to have children.”*

While it seems ridiculous to think we actually have to conduct studies like this, it’s become abundantly clear that politicians and pundits alike have been trying to say/legislate otherwise — for both contraception and abortion. And since people who choose abortion actually do so for similar reasons as they do for contraception, these kinds of studies show more than the fact that reproductive freedom allows us to pursue our life goals — but that restrictions on those freedoms are infringements on the educational opportunities, economic security and all of the fundamental pieces that contribute to the lives we desire for ourselves. It’s not just our bodily integrity that’s on the line, but our futures.

*Or if they want to have children.

Join the Conversation