Despite recent advances and increases in social services spending in Equador, widespread disparities and inequalities in access to health care remain, and access to safe or legal abortion services is nonexistent.
Improving access to sexual and reproductive health services is necessary to advance the Millennium Development Goals. At this critical moment, however, funding priorities for family planning are being shifted away from Latin America and the Caribbean, which may undermine the substantial gains that have been made in the region and overlook the tremendous need that still remains.
A new study using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health finds no association between abortion and either depression or low self-esteem in teens within a year of terminating a pregnancy or five years later.
A new report by California Latinas for Reproductive Justice reveals that pregnant and parenting young Latinas face systemic discrimination in educational institutions and lack social supports in their communities.
We urgently need to make adolescent girls and young women a priority in research, legal reforms, and funding. Only by doing so can our societies overcome the “indecent inequality” of maternal death.
I’m 23 and was raised Christian and sex has always made me feel guilty. I got married a year ago and now can’t enjoy sex at all. Am I being punished for having sex before marriage? Should I just accept a life without sex?
