They are your rights, assert them

"The right to scientific and reliable information"

Those of us who are going to vote wonder

¿What do POLITICAL CANDIDATES propose on this issue?

Living a sexuality for non-reproductive purposes is not a privilege of modern contemporary societies. The control of fecundity is a practice that spans the history of human civilization. From the recipes of the ancient Greeks to the modern contraceptive methods, human societies have sought to limit the number of children they have by trying to separate the reproduction from the pleasant, emotional and communication dimension of sexuality.

Ever since it organized itself in society, the human species has sought, under certain circumstances, to prevent the sexual intercourse between man and woman to result in fertilization. Humanity has applied contraception with more or less intensity, since the earliest of times. This behavior constitutes a variant with reference to the rest of the animal species whose males and females are programmed to, instinctively, attract each other and reproduce.

Resorting to contraception is a specific trait of the human species, associated to the capacity of resorting to certain techniques and procedures. For instance, there’s evidence that introducing plates made with dry crocodile or elephant excrements at the end of the vagina was recommended in the Islamic culture until the XIII century. There are direct references in texts in the Genesis and the Talmud to potions made from dried roots used as protection from, at the same time, excessive fertility or infertility. The Hippocratic Oath already specified the existence of contraceptive methods and pointed that “I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion”, which may be an explanation for the resistance that –even in the XXI century- many health care professionals have in connection with providing contraceptive methods.

The XX century marked some unprecedented advances in the evolution of a wide variety of contraceptive methods that have gone hand in hand with two of the most significant processes of these times: the sexual revolution and the liberation of women from the restrictive model of a sexuality in the service of procreation or the sole project of becoming mothers. These advances were reflected in various international agreements which have acknowledged the right of people to decide the number and spacing of children they desire. A right that cannot be violated in favor of other interests. The United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in 1994, was a landmark and a paradigm shift on population policies. Ever since, no economic and/or demographic policy can take precedence over the human right and people’s freedom to decide. This principle is an ethical and political commitment undertaken by States that seeks to protect people from any development policy that isn’t intended to guarantee the population’s welfare.

Having scientific and reliable information on the different contraceptive methods, as well as the guarantee of access to services aimed at providing confidential and respectful care and offering a wide variety of methods are conditions that also set the stage for the full exercise of sexual rights and reproductive rights.