![]() A lot of groups who get it, a lot of groups who have dedicated part-time or full-time staff positions to interfacing and liaising with our reproductive-health community because the issues are so intertwined.Ī. Do we have incredibly supportive and positive partners within the broader mainstream environmental movement? Absolutely. I guess that depends on how you slice it. Do you feel like the population movement is part of the broader environmental movement?Ī. I didn’t have kids when I was 19.” Having my first child absolutely convinced me that the work I do is the mission I’m dedicated to for the rest of my life. So when people ask me, “How did you get where you got? Good mentor? Maybe you went to Cornell?” I’m like, “All that’s fine, but I had the Pill. It has certainly enhanced my life in untold ways, but it’s not singularly what I’m about, and it’s not singularly what most women in the world want to be about. The only reason I enjoy as much as I do is because it was totally my choice - a choice I was ready for, a choice I could afford, a choice that I had a partner with whom I could pursue it. I was able to delay childbearing until I was in a partnership that I felt well-supported in and we decided together that this was something that we wanted to pursue, as opposed to this kind of reproductive destiny that many women around the world feel beholden to. I certainly wouldn’t have the career that I have. ![]() If I had started having kids when I became sexually active in my late teens and early twenties, God knows how many children I would have by now. I’m 36 and I’m nine-and-a-half-months pregnant with my second child I obviously delayed childbearing. We in the West take for granted these options and this autonomy, and we forget all that flows out of it. They do tend to have smaller families, they do want to see all of their children go through school, they do absolutely put a priority on girls’ education, and the woman in the family does often return to work and engage in the professional sphere. You find that in countries when you give people access to education and services, they achieve kind of the same thing that you’ve just described. I really trust women to take care of it themselves. There are 215 million women out there who say they want access to family planning and basic contraception and don’t have it. It’s not where PAI plays its strategic hand. I’m glad to see that conversation is alive and well in a lot of politically diverse ways. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist.
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