I was on the cusp of achieving my dreams when I found out I was pregnant for the first time. I had just landed a much-deserved promotion and picked up a lucrative side job. With the expected increase in income, I secured a new apartment and was set to move in shortly.
Then, just weeks later, I found myself in a social services office, overwhelmed and in tears because I couldn’t afford basic necessities and didn’t qualify for food assistance. To make matters worse, the social worker saw fit to lecture me about safe sex and pregnancy prevention. In her eyes, I was not a college-educated professional with over a decade of work experience, but merely a struggling black woman, a “baby mama,” attempting to exploit the system for handouts.
The treatment of low-income individuals in this country is disheartening, especially for women, particularly mothers. They face relentless judgment and invasive scrutiny about their personal lives. They are often stripped of the right to have their own thoughts and feelings regarding everything from financial stability to reproductive choices.
It’s infuriating to suggest that having children is the sole factor behind a woman’s poverty. Who has the right to dictate when or if a woman should start a family? Does being financially challenged mean you’re unworthy of motherhood?
Children indeed come with financial responsibilities, that’s a fact. However, the choice to become a mother isn’t the root cause of poverty in America. The real culprits include insufficient access to healthcare, both physical and mental, a lack of resources for financial literacy and job readiness, and the systemic advantages of race, nepotism, and generational wealth that keep the affluent comfortable while leaving the less fortunate behind.
Understanding and having access to contraception is undoubtedly important—no one is disputing that. Statistics from Upstream, an organization focused on removing barriers to birth control access, indicate that nearly half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, and for impoverished women, the rate of unplanned pregnancies is five times higher than that of their wealthier counterparts.
This is certainly an issue that needs addressing, and organizations like Upstream are doing commendable work in this area. However, it’s crucial to remember that unplanned pregnancies, regardless of circumstances, are not the cause of poverty. While ensuring that all women who wish for birth control can get it is a step toward reducing unplanned pregnancies, it won’t eradicate poverty.
You may be curious about the origin of these thoughts. Recently, an article in the New York Times by Laura Johnson suggested that contraception could be a key factor in alleviating poverty. It highlighted Upstream’s collaboration with Delaware to implement their initiatives statewide, emphasizing long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) like IUDs as their primary recommendation—though they do provide a range of options for women.
While that sounds great, it raises an important question: Is it fair to pressure women, especially those from low-income backgrounds, to opt for a LARC without giving them adequate time to weigh the risks and consider if it’s the right choice for them? Are we inadvertently stripping away their ability to make informed decisions about their reproductive health by prioritizing a specific method?
It’s a delicate line to tread when discussing the reproductive choices of low-income women under the guise of assistance. Organizations like Upstream must carefully navigate their messaging to avoid giving the impression that they endorse LARC as the default option for every woman entering their clinics.
Of course, access to affordable healthcare, including contraception, is essential. However, to suggest that contraception alone is a panacea for poverty is misguided. This conversation should only occur after we address issues like raising the minimum wage, closing the gender pay gap, and providing affordable childcare for working mothers. We must also support women like I was—working but not earning a livable wage.
Financial instability is the real driver of poverty, not children. Removing women’s autonomy over their bodies and treating them like problems to be solved can have detrimental effects on their self-worth. If we genuinely want to break the cycle of poverty, it begins by empowering mothers and acknowledging them as responsible individuals capable of making significant decisions about their families without external interference.
This article was originally published on April 29, 2023.
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