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Why Is It So Hard to Get Effective Birth Control in the US? | Mark Edwards | TED

Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, the result of millions of people being unable to get the birth control method that works best for them. Reproductive health advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Mark Edwards discusses Upstream USA’s nationwide effort to expand access to high-quality contraceptive care by integrating it…

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Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, the result of millions of people being unable to get the birth control method that works best for them. Reproductive health advocate and 2023 Audacious Project grantee Mark Edwards discusses Upstream USA’s nationwide effort to expand access to high-quality contraceptive care by integrating it into primary health care settings — a crucial shift towards increasing equal health opportunities and empowering people to decide when and if they want to start families.

This ambitious plan is a part of the Audacious Project, TED’s initiative to inspire and fund global change. Learn more at .

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#TED #TEDTalks #birthcontrol

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72 Comments

72 Comments

  1. Aaron Kortas

    June 13, 2023 at 5:04 pm

    I clicked on this just to say this guy looks like Obama and Biden morphed together into one person

  2. Casteel

    June 13, 2023 at 5:09 pm

    Is advocating for abortion?

  3. CG7 Entertainment

    June 13, 2023 at 5:10 pm

    Stop telling men they can only use condoms for birth control and maybe we’ll cut that number down when it comes to unwanted pregnancy.

  4. John Kesich

    June 13, 2023 at 5:17 pm

    “I got my girlfriend pregnant and I had to quit my job”?!
    Am I the only one who found this statement illogical enough to fry Spock’s brain?

    • soccerojdoj

      June 13, 2023 at 7:12 pm

      If the family can’t afford child care then the parent who makes the least amount of money needs to stay home to care for the child. Logical, but such a sad logic it might make even Mr. Spock cry😢

  5. doc1

    June 13, 2023 at 5:27 pm

    look at this clown, either making a fool of himself or his audience. there is no such thing as unplanned or unexpected pregnancy, if the woman don’t want to get pregnant she’ll find a way and she wants to she’ll also find a way so the sofia of this story definitely wanted it except it didn’t go as she expected (getting life long financial and emotional support from the dad) that’s the only unexpected part

    • 1890

      June 13, 2023 at 5:59 pm

      I greatly suspect that you’re a man..

      As a woman who has been trying not to get pregnant for 40 years, it’s not that easy and birth control fails.. all.. the.. time.

      Even with perfect use.

    • Kenneth

      June 13, 2023 at 9:15 pm

      @1890 Hmmm, three times? I realize that you meant the observations that are potentially from “a man” automatically make that person’s observations meaningless in your eyes (what if it’s a woman?), and I know this may sound absolutely crazy, but is there just a tiny, tiny probability that the couple played some small role and are responsible?

  6. jAiMe LoVe McMiLlAn

    June 13, 2023 at 5:32 pm

    I got pregnant on the depo shot. Six months after giving birth to my first child. Sadly i miscarried the second pregnancy in my 5th month. But you better believe i didn’t go back to the depo shot again! It’s like that saying, “Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.” If something like this doesn’t work for you then you should take the responsibility of looking for something that does. Another form of birth control, condoms or abstinence might help in that situation. But that’s just my little experience. Godspeed y’all. ✌️💛🤟

  7. Wolfie Lover

    June 13, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    Government need more children to be born to be the workers of the future to support the large old population. Birth rate has dropped too much.
    The government want

  8. Peter Sokunbi

    June 13, 2023 at 5:37 pm

    Why didn’t she call up ahead and asked question?

  9. David

    June 13, 2023 at 5:38 pm

    Birth ‘control’ = promiscuity, lack of responsibility and degraded sense of family. Why is this a TED topic?

  10. Leah McPherson

    June 13, 2023 at 5:44 pm

    Thank you. I’ll be sharing this video with friends

  11. whateveryousay

    June 13, 2023 at 5:46 pm

    It really should be as simple as saying “I want to be sterilized”.

    Or there are 4 different IUDs on the market rhat are not available in the US that need review and approval.

    Not to mention the gender neutral condom that needs ti be brought to the USA. The offerings for pregnancy prevention are artificially low.

  12. Pas _Quattro

    June 13, 2023 at 5:47 pm

    The comments from MEN telling others that birth control for people who are NOT men is readily available is VERY telling. 😬

  13. KKardi

    June 13, 2023 at 5:52 pm

    Short answer people are lazy and stupid

  14. BASS NINJA

    June 13, 2023 at 5:52 pm

    I think the problem is people not keeping those legs closed both parties wanna not have kids just disk jock or rub one out self and kid issue fixed.

  15. Cara F

    June 13, 2023 at 5:53 pm

    Yes some places you have to order the shot or the nexplanon and it takes weeks. Plus no one wants to sterilize women so even if you know you don’t want kids you can’t get the procedure

  16. Austin Denotter

    June 13, 2023 at 6:21 pm

    Is abstinence a solution?

  17. shaun H

    June 13, 2023 at 6:30 pm

    As a foreigner, the United States inability to manage birth control and reproductive rights is just sad. But what can you expect from a country that’s been off the rails since 2016?

    • Raptor Jesus

      June 13, 2023 at 7:02 pm

      It’s been off the rails much longer than that,

    • Jocelyn Taylor

      June 13, 2023 at 7:15 pm

      This has been a problem way before 2016. Unfortunately, the U.S. has an issue with Christian fundamentalists (or evangelicals as they prefer to be called).

      Most of these people love forcing their religious views on other people. They will even stick with said religious views when these views reek havoc in their own lives. And some are downright hypocritical. They will secretly use birth control or get abortions while telling others not to.

      The comments here advocating abstinence were probably made by people who have never practiced it.

      The greater issue is that the U.S. is slowly becoming more secular and most Christian evangelicals are being left behind. Especially with all of the abuse and hyprocrisy that surround them. These were the same people who voted for a twice-divorced, thrice-married, adulterous con-man who never met a birth control method he didn’t like.

      They still push abstinence as the only birth control solution when it just doesn’t work and they even don’t practice it. But this is how they roll. And they still try to force this BS down everybody else’s throat.

    • Kenneth

      June 13, 2023 at 9:05 pm

      That’s not very nice, and the US has many great traits while being self-deprecating enough to also realize the flaws on which its citizens are constantly working.

    • Superior Mobile by 13 Fabrication & Personalization

      June 14, 2023 at 4:21 pm

      @REVMATCH newsflash: over half the US is a Trump hater, and that’s a factual statistic, not a political opinion.

    • REVMATCH

      June 14, 2023 at 4:25 pm

      @Superior Mobile by 13 Fabrication & Personalization 😂❄️❄️❄️

    • shaun H

      June 14, 2023 at 6:40 pm

      ​@REVMATCHTrump is just a symptom of the rot.

    • Superior Mobile by 13 Fabrication & Personalization

      June 14, 2023 at 6:42 pm

      @REVMATCH whoaaaaaa the SNOWFLAKE insult!?! omg I’m sooooo crushed. ya’ll MAGAts are so pathetically predictable.

    • Superior Mobile by 13 Fabrication & Personalization

      June 14, 2023 at 6:42 pm

      @REVMATCH faced with facts you don’t like? personal attack!

  18. Lynda Thompson

    June 13, 2023 at 7:19 pm

    Women want to be told by women.

  19. GLEN Zee

    June 13, 2023 at 7:21 pm

    Yep condoms are so expensive you need a line of credit these days. Better yet keep your legs closed. Enough of this. Third unexpected child 🤔 maybe just maybe take the pills you claim you were. My wife and I had no problem with this and had two planned children.

    • rose2dimples

      June 14, 2023 at 5:11 am

      Accidents happen… OMG!

  20. riley fong

    June 13, 2023 at 7:34 pm

    one reason is because the government doesn’t want less babies. they want a higher population to contribute to this shitshow we call capitalism.

  21. Marcel Dunkelberg

    June 13, 2023 at 7:34 pm

    …because your health care system sucks.

  22. Sean Lumly

    June 13, 2023 at 7:36 pm

    The US is a sad, sad place.

    • Kenneth

      June 13, 2023 at 9:01 pm

      No.

  23. Toni

    June 13, 2023 at 8:00 pm

    It makes my blood boil when I think that you only have to cross a state line to break the law in the US. I wouldn’t live there in a million years.

    • Tal Park

      June 14, 2023 at 9:07 am

      🙄

    • Toni

      June 14, 2023 at 9:41 pm

      @Tal Park It seems most people agree with me 😏

    • Tal Park

      June 14, 2023 at 11:03 pm

      @Toni 🙄logical fallacies have been quite popular lately. fkn sad, eh

  24. Enrico Suave

    June 13, 2023 at 8:13 pm

    BIrth control is the death of another human being – take your propaganda and shove it

  25. The Man w/No Name

    June 13, 2023 at 9:22 pm

    Bc religion turns people into jerks?

  26. unholyrevenger72

    June 13, 2023 at 10:08 pm

    1. Republicans
    2. Capitalism

  27. might.be.a.mushroom

    June 13, 2023 at 10:33 pm

    Comments don’t pass the vibe check. Move along!

  28. Maryam Nejatollahi

    June 13, 2023 at 10:43 pm

    That is shockingly sad about the level of access to birth control in the US

  29. Anthony Ferreira

    June 13, 2023 at 11:36 pm

    Globalists that are pushing the great reset depopulation! Evil continues without opposition…

  30. Janmejaya Mishra

    June 13, 2023 at 11:48 pm

    birth control ? stop having seggs

  31. Michael Burggraf

    June 14, 2023 at 3:46 am

    That is hardly imaginable for me as a European. Particularly in view of the debate about abortion in the US. It’s indicating that the vast majority of those religous fundamentalists in the US are just bigot hypocrits massively failing their own belief.

  32. Ben Sky

    June 14, 2023 at 4:06 am

    America is scraping the bottom of the barrel on incredibly many things. Birth control and reproductive rights are just 2 of them.

  33. Righteous Finn

    June 14, 2023 at 6:53 am

    vasectomy did the job for me

  34. Dean Barber

    June 14, 2023 at 6:56 am

    You can’t talk about health care without talking about MONEY, which is something I heard very little of in this clip.

  35. Krista

    June 14, 2023 at 8:01 am

    Thank you for doing this! I am plain shocked that this isn’t already available. Thank you so much!

  36. lohphat

    June 14, 2023 at 8:19 am

    Because Republicans consider women chattel. Property doesn’t have free will and the freedom to decide their own fate.

  37. lohphat

    June 14, 2023 at 8:19 am

    Because Republicans consider women chattel. Property doesn’t have free will and the freedom to decide its own fate.

  38. Dave BakChoy

    June 14, 2023 at 10:08 am

    Birth Control? USA cannot even deal with gun laws😅

  39. Leto Quarles

    June 14, 2023 at 11:38 am

    As a physician who has ultimately exited primary care specifically because of the systemic inability to resolve issues like this, I both laud your efforts, and need to point out that the root cause is not uninformed primary care practitioners, but perverse incentives (and disincentives) of the US’s broken healthcare payment system.
    When I ran my own solo private practice, I was passionate about equitable access to quality care. What that translated to, in real practice, was that it was cheaper for me to spend $3-5 MILLION per year out of the operating budget of my clinic to pay for things like IUDs, specialty medications, and hiring a team of mental health therapists – all on my own dime – rather than commit the thousands of hours of staff and practitioner time to jumping thru the hoops that Medicaid and Medicare would require to reimburse those services (which would them be reimbursed in most cases well below cost, bringing in maybe $1.5-2M while doubling the workload and therefore personnel costs of providing these services). I literally worked two side jobs to subsidize the care of others in my community, until it burned me out, made my family miserable, and destroyed my health.
    This is what happens when moralizing politicians and others who have no patient-facing accountability write our healthcare payment policies and procedures. It is (or at least was at the time) literally *illegal* for a practice to purchase and stock IUDs in the clinic, and then bill Medicaid for the placement of those IUDs – regulations require(d) that each individual IUD be pre-authorized for each individual patient, then ordered, then implanted.
    I honestly don’t know whether to believe that these sorts of structures and regulations are the unfortunate result of clueless and incompetent policymakers, or the malevolent forethought of a corporate elite whose wealth depends on an endless and disposable supply of labor and consumers who are too busy surviving to be able to live healthier, more empowered lives.

    • akptarmigan

      June 14, 2023 at 3:02 pm

      Wow. Shocking.

    • Seraphina

      June 19, 2023 at 2:53 pm

      Indeed! So disheartening that you have to part with the work you are obviously passionate about. It appears tho US is not alone in this regard. The nations of Canada and UK are also struggling in sustainability for various reasons mainly shortage of man power/labour/staff AND in the business/financial aspects of healthcare.

  40. Boyang Li

    June 14, 2023 at 3:39 pm

    1. Condom
    2. Abortion

    There you go.

  41. Mike Sackmary

    June 14, 2023 at 5:13 pm

    Birth control is available on request by minors, without parental consent. This is paid for by the taxpayers. Abortions are also availabel at taxpayer expense, again the girl’s parents don’t even get notified. So it really can’t be any damn easier.

    • safaiaryu

      June 14, 2023 at 7:51 pm

      Literally not a single part of this is true.

    • Mike Sackmary

      June 14, 2023 at 7:56 pm

      @safaiaryu Go to any Planned Parenthood clinic and see for yourself. I speak truth

    • Hipp

      June 17, 2023 at 2:09 am

      source?

  42. izzy

    June 14, 2023 at 9:25 pm

    Look no further than the comments section to see how badly we need birth control education.

  43. Alexander

    June 15, 2023 at 12:26 pm

    Very important and great initiative!
    I am European and I grew up (just as many other peers in my generation) with a great image of the US in mind. It felt like the US was the country of endless opportunities and rapid progress. I don’t know if that feeling was a result of Hollywood dominance in media or it really had something behind it.
    Nevertheless, what I see now is that the US is failing miserably in tackling the issues it’s political and social systems are facing. Absolutely ridiculous racial and minorities issues that are unimaginable in any other developed country that are still there after decades with no substantial progress. Healthcare system which is falling apart making people choose between death and horrific bills. Even the key drivers of economic success in the past decades— tech companies. From saviors they turned into tyrants basically repeating a more of a century old situation with robber barons.
    I don’t even want to talk about the education system, which is not withstanding any criticism, except for a dozen of top-tier Unis with very low accessibility.
    The US has to be heavily reformed and I really hope it will be, to again stand among the leaders of the global progress.
    And this is one of the initiatives that can close this gap. For a very tiny fraction, but it will close it.

    • Seraphina

      June 19, 2023 at 3:01 pm

      Unfortunately there is no foreseeable reform. The politicians are too busy fighting the wrong battles. US is on its way out never to regain its statute. That is how empires are thru history. First, it was babylonians, then egyptians,medo-persian, greco-roman, turkish ottoman/byzantine etc. Empires rise, dominate for several hundred years and then fall. And another takes its place. If history as they say repeats, then US as global power will fade and another will rise. My prediction: the next global power is multinational with its makeup in the “east”, some religious elements, socio-economic dependence and technological advancement. It will literally the beast that devours everything in its path contrary to it.

  44. Caitlin Dodge

    June 18, 2023 at 7:57 pm

    I’m not surprised at the backlash and feelings of disbelief of Sophia’s story.

  45. Olivia

    June 19, 2023 at 7:59 pm

    I realized that the secret to making a million is making better investment. I always tell myself you don’t need that new car or that vacation just yet and that mindset helps me make more money investing.

    • Olivia

      June 19, 2023 at 8:03 pm

      What I think everyone need is a Financial Adviser, who can help you get in and out of any investment at any time and you’d sure be in Profit

    • Olivia

      June 19, 2023 at 8:04 pm

      *ROCHELLE DUNGCA-SCHREIBER,* That’s whom i work with..

    • susan nicky

      June 19, 2023 at 8:06 pm

      is ROCHELLE DUNGCA-SCHREIBER on youtube? please how do i reach her!.

    • Olivia

      June 19, 2023 at 8:07 pm

      No she’s not!… Youtube is a public place; i can’t drop her information here but You can just put her name on google and you will be directed to her website and drop her your message.

    • susan nicky

      June 19, 2023 at 8:08 pm

      Thanks… This Was Helpful!!… I found her page….

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