The Dangerous Rise of the IUD as Poverty Cure
/
By Christine Dehlendorf and Kelsey Holt - New York Times
January 2, 2019
“Of course contraception is critical to individuals’ human right to control their reproduction and shape the course of their own lives. But there is a clear danger in suggesting that ending poverty on a societal level is as simple as inserting a device into an arm or uterus. This idea distracts from the structural factors — like the availability of social services and racial discrimination — that determine economic opportunities. Providing contraception is critical because it is a core component of women’s health care, not because of an unfounded belief that it is a silver bullet for poverty.
We also have concerns about how this emphasis on birth control as a tool of poverty reduction actually plays out in clinics. Claims about the social benefits of increasing the use of IUDs and implants can contribute to a narrative that says these methods are the best methods for everyone and that a program’s success should be judged by the numbers of IUDs and implants its providers insert. This, in turn, can contribute to providers neglecting individual women’s preferences when it comes to birth control: applying subtle pressure to use long-acting contraception, for example, or resisting requests to remove IUDs and implants.”
