In the video embedded below, the Guttmacher institute — a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion and protection of women’s reproductive health — explained succinctly why family planning is now more important than ever.

With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, U.S. women can now have access to reliable contraception for free.

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Reliable contraception allows women and their partners to plan their families, to space babies apart to allow for healthier mothers and children and to delay childbearing until they can achieve goals that will make them better able to provide for a child. Women can finish school or take the time to find good jobs.

“All of this is good not just for women,” the video said, “but for their families and society as a whole.”

Reliable, available contraception helps prevent women from becoming impoverished by the financial demands of childbearing. Publicly supported family planning services help women prevent an estimated 2.2 million unintended pregnancies each year, meaning 1.1 million fewer unplanned births and an estimated 760,000 fewer abortions.

The national network of health centers that provides for 6.7 million U.S. women is currently under fire. Conservative politicians and pundits have waged an ideological and legislative war of attrition against women’s clinics.

Women’s health care — and thereby women’s health — is threatened in the U.S.. Guttmacher urges Americans to get the facts and stand up for women, their families and society.

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Watch the video, embedded below via the Guttmacher Institute: