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Gloria explains if granting access to birth control provides women with freedom.
Gloria:
Hi. I am Gloria Feldt and I am an author, I am a blogger, I have a Web site gloriafeldt.com and I call my blog “Heartfeldt Politics.” I used to be President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Access to birth control, to me, gives women the most basic freedom that they have to have in their life. If you can control your childbearing, you can then actually have a plan for your life. I know that’s what happened to me. The birth control pill came out in 1960. I was a young wife and mother and I had my third child in 1962. At that point my doctor offered me the birth control pill, and it literally saved my life.
I was, I was exhausted, and once I had the ability to plan and space my childbearing, then I could start to college, and I did. And it took me 12 years, but I was able to build a different kind of life for myself. Mothering is wonderful, but women have brains too and can do many other things in life, and so to me, access to birth control is the most basic thing that a woman has to have in order to be able to have agency over the rest of her life.
About Gloria Feldt:
Gloria Feldt is a nationally acclaimed activist, author, keynote speaker and commentator on women's lives, rights, health, and leadership from where the personal meets the political. She’s been dubbed "the voice of experience" by People Magazine, one of America’s “Top 200 Women Leaders, Legends, and Trailblazers” by Vanity Fair, “Woman of the Year” by Glamour, and a “practical visionary” by her colleagues. She was a teen mom whose life’s passion for reproductive justice led her to a 30-year career with the world's largest reproductive health care provider and advocacy organization, Planned Parenthood.
Visit Gloria Feldt at her Web site