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Reproductive Health and Family Planning

It is estimated that 250 million women worldwide have unmet contraceptive needs.  Without proper access to reproductive health and family planning services women are at high risk for childbearing complications including maternal and infant mortality.  NASW supports public policies and legislation, nationally and internationally, that recognize a woman’s authority over her own sexual life and reproductive choices, free from coercion, violence, and discrimination.

Access to Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care

• Millennium Development Goal #5 – United Nations target for universal access to family planning and reproductive health care information by the year 2015.
• United Nations Foundation – promotes universal access to reproductive health.
• Focus on 5: Women’s Health and the MDGs – United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) highlights this document containing briefing cards on why the world needs to invest now in maternal, newborn, and reproductive health and the strategic actions needed to improve vital health services for mothers and their newborns in the developing world.
• Making the Case for U.S. International Family Planning Assistance – Written by five former directors of the Population and Reproductive Health Program of the United States Agency for International Development, this document highlights the urgent need for greater U.S. assistance to family planning programs in the developing world.

Reproductive Health Care Delivery

• Advance Africa’s Best Practice Compendium in Reproductive Delivery  - created to facilitate the identification, documentation, and dissemination of best practices in the field of family planning and reproductive health, assist program managers in identifying and selecting successful practices they can then adapt for their own program needs, and promote rigorous standards and evidence-based practices within public health programs.
• Implementing Best Practices in Reproductive Health – an electronic knowledge gateway developed by WHO and USAID for users to work collaboratively to improve access to high quality reproductive health services and harmonize approaches in practice.
• IFSW Policy Statement on Cross Border Reproductive Services – reviews issues relevant for social workers assisting involuntarily childless adults that seek to build a family through forms of assisted conception and are dependent on the involvement of a third party as a donor or surrogate.

Gender and Reproductive Health Care in Emergency Settings

• The Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) for Reproductive Health (RH) in Crisis Situations – First articulated in 1996, the MISP for RH is a set of priority activities to be implemented during the onset of an emergency (conflict or natural disaster).  Neglecting RH in emergencies has serious consequences: preventable maternal and infant deaths; sexual violence and subsequent unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions; and the spread of HIV.
• IASC Guidelines for Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings -
  These guidelines, containing twenty-five action sheets available in five languages, outline minimum interventions to prevent and respond to sexual violence during the early stages of an emergency.

NASW Activities, Projects, and Research

• Healthy Families, Strong Communities is an NASW project funded by the United Nations Foundation to engage the U.S. and the broader international community in the strengthening of maternal health and reproductive health.
• Human Rights Update on Social Workers Addressing the Rights of Women and Girls Worldwide through MDG5 (10/8/2010 pdf)
• NASW Policy Statement on Family Planning and Reproductive Health - appears in Social Work Speaks, a compilation of over 60 NASW policy statements on social work-related issues.
• Female Genital Cutting – an NASW research page focusing on the practice of female genital cutting, otherwise referred to as female genital mutilation or female circumcision.
• March for Women’s Lives – a 2004 rally co-sponsored by NASW for women’s reproductive rights.

 

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