Kristof Links Lack of Family Planning Options to Poverty

Writing from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof described the relationship between poverty and high fertility in an op-ed column today. "For all the American and international efforts to fight global poverty,” he writes, “one thing is clear: Those efforts won’t get far as long as women like Nahomie Nercure continue to have 10 children.”

In the column, Kristof argues that with global family planning efforts stalled, women like Nahomie continue to have more children than they intended, dashing their hopes of escaping poverty. Citing UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, he discusses the 200 million women who want to delay or avoid pregnancy, but lack access to safe and effective contraception.

According to Kristof, “mounting academic evidence underscores what is intuitively obvious in Haiti: unless family planning is more successful in poor countries, they won’t be able to overcome poverty."

He concludes: “President Obama has already lifted the ban on aid for the Population Fund, and we now have an opportunity to lead a global effort to regain lost momentum for family planning. And while Nahomie’s story shows that this won’t be easy, it also underscores that there’s simply no alternative.”