Around the world, from Asia to Africa, tens of millions of women have gained access to contraception in the past 5 years, making it possible for them to avoid unsafe abortions, unintended pregnancies and maternal deaths. This progress, reported last month by Family Planning 2020, a global partnership launched in 2012 with the goal enabling an additional 120 million women in the world’s poorest countries to access voluntary contraception by 2020, is encouraging. But without continued global support, these numbers could fall off, with immeasurable consequences for millions of women and girls and the economies that sustain them.

According to FP2020’s progress report, 309.3 million women and girls in the world’s poorest countries use a modern method of contraception, as of July 2017. That means 38.8 million more women and girls are using contraception now than in 2012, the year of FP2020’s launch. This increase has positive consequences. Between July 2016 and July 2017, use of family planning averted 26 million unsafe abortions, prevented 84 million unintended pregnancies, and avoided 125,000 maternal deaths.

Despite the clear evidence that investing family planning brings about a lifetime of returns, the current US administration has proposed zeroing out the State Department’s and USAID’s budget for international family planning.

For a relatively small investment by the US government of about $600 million a year, the Senate Committee’s proposed level of support, millions of lives could be saved, and millions of unsafe abortions and maternal and child deaths could be averted. This $600 million investment could, according to the Copenhagen Consensus analysis, reap benefits of $72 billion to the poorest countries of the world.

Read the full article about protecting family planning process abroad by Jose G. Oying Rimon II and Amy O. Tsui at Global Health Now.