Improved access to contraceptives helps women plan families

In the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Gary Darmstadt, Monica Kerrigan, and Wendy Prosser of the foundation discuss a new partnership announced on Wednesday at the U.N. to improve access to contraceptive implants for women in the developing world. The program, part of the FP2020 initiative to increase access to modern contraceptives, "will save the lives of hundreds of thousands of mothers and children and prevent millions of unwanted pregnancies by giving women access to information, supplies and services to delay, space and limit her births," they write. "This new development puts the power in women's hands with information, services and contraceptive methods they need and want," they state, concluding, "Most importantly, though, it allows women in some of the poorest regions of the world the chance to make their own choices about how to plan their families" (9/27).