The COVID-19 pandemic and the public health and economic crises it has set off have had ongoing and widespread effects on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). This multilayered crisis has exacted a disproportionate toll on individuals (and entire communities) who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color, as well as other marginalized communities around the globe, and its impact on reproductive health has mapped all too clearly along lines of privilege and disadvantage.
Guttmacher’s trajectory in navigating the obstacles and opportunities presented by the current landscape is guided by this strategic framework, which details our vision, guiding principles and goals. This framework acts as a compass for real-time strategic action and for developing and implementing an agenda that reasserts the importance of facts and evidence, while centering equity and justice. The ongoing nature of our strategic planning reinforces our ability to remain nimble, adaptive and dynamic in our approach to advancing SRHR in the United States and globally.
- Advance SRHR policies and programs in ways that help create more just and equitable societies
- Generate research and analysis needed to monitor change and improve policy and program design and implementation
- Support and strengthen a movement for SRHR and justice that includes a broad base of allies leveraging multiple approaches in coordinated ways
- Develop, shape and contribute to a narrative that shifts hearts and minds and changes norms in support of a progressive SRHR vision
- Develop a comprehensive package of evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on SRHR, and ensure that SRHR is part of efforts to rebuild economic and health care infrastructure in the wake of the pandemic
- Defend equitable access to safe, legal, affordable and comprehensive abortion care, including by working to eliminate abortion coverage restrictions
- Protect and expand financing for, coverage of and equitable access to high-quality contraceptive services
- Expand access to comprehensive maternal health care, and address inequities in maternal health outcomes
- Build knowledge of pregnancy intentions, and illuminate the health, social and economic benefits of policies that enable people to achieve their childbearing goals
- Call attention to the needs of populations disproportionately impacted by SRHR inequities, and examine the social determinants of health that underlie these inequities
- Advance SRHR within health equity initiatives, and position SRHR as essential and inextricably linked to the achievement of health and development goals
- Promote and uphold the maxim “facts matter” by elevating legitimate science and evidence, and exposing the pseudoscience that undergirds the anti-SRHR agenda