One cannot stay informed about the world of international health policy without keeping up with reports and initiatives issued by Planned Parenthood. The challenges of reading Planned Parenthood are twofold: their endnotes are inadequate and their statistics are questionable. After looking at their sources and comparing the numbers I have found a great number of contradictory “facts” and a misrepresentation of reality. This skewed depiction of health-care realities grossly distorts the plight of adolescent women. It is used to support a pro-contraception agenda that does not save lives in the delivery room.
IPPF’s new initiative, Vision 2020, misrepresents and obfuscates the health challenges facing women around the world. On the summary page of the report, IPPF makes the claim that “complications from pregnancy and child birth are the leading cause of death in young women aged 15-19.” There is no footnote, source, or explanation of that statistic on the website or in the detailed report. There is, however, an endnote in the report referencing a UN document that claims that child birth and pregnancy complications are “one of the leading causes of death for adolescent girls” globally and not the leading cause of death. Is the statement of International Planned Parenthood, therefore, a lie? The quick answer is, “No, but it remains a drastic misrepresentation of the causes of death by region and globally. Since IPPF did not define, provide statistics on, or cite their claim that birth-related complications are the leading cause of death I cannot perfectly verify their claim. Nor do they disaggregate what these complications are. However, I have some sources that lead me to mistrust IPPF’s un-cited statistical claims about maternal mortality.
Statistics provided by the UN and WHO show that maternal and child birth complications are not the leading cause of death globally or by region in 15-19 year-olds. “Self-harm” was the leading cause of death among 15-19 year old females globally, and HIV was even greater cause of mortality amongst adolescent females in Africa (according to an interactive graph referenced by WHO). This same research referenced by WHO reveals that the mortality rate for diarrhoreal diseases, lower respiratory infections, and meningitis combined is 49.89 per 100,000 adolescents. Compare this figure to the maternal mortality figure (which includes hemorrhages, infections, delivery complications, abortion complications, etc.) of 33.83 deaths per 100,000 adolescents and it becomes clear that maternal mortality is not the only health problem facing young women. Why then does IPPF seem to overemphasize maternal mortality? It is because they want to associate pregnancy with death and scare adolescents into using birth control.
IPPF argues for increased “family planning” funding because birth control is fundamentally not an issue of medicine but of beliefs. Maternal deaths are a serious medical problem, but IPPF is using women’s health as a reason to advocate spending more on birth control and not safer births through medical facilities. If this organization was actually concerned about saving the lives of young women in developing countries it would work to combat the not-so-glamorous diarrohoreal and lower respiratory diseases first. Of course, Planned Parenthood is, by its very name, not about women’s health but birth control advocacy. The goal of Vision 2020 is not to improve health outcomes for adolescent girls (primarily) but to encourage family planning.
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