Want to Reduce Abortions? Help Reduce Unwanted Pregnancies
The Zika virus outbreak in Brazil had some public health experts calling for the 2016 Summer Olympics to be moved from Rio de Janeiro or postponed. Some world class female athletes, including U.S. soccer team members, considered staying home, or hunkered down in their hotel rooms between games, to avoid the disease that can cause profound birth defects in children of infected women.
But what of the millions of Brazilian women of childbearing age, especially those in the poor and overcrowded neighborhoods, which the World Health Organization has advised travelers to avoid? The advice from health experts: don’t become pregnant. Unfortunately for women in Brazil and many other developing nations, birth control can be hard to obtain. And research shows that millions of people around the world want more access to family planning.
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