我的家庭、事業和如今擁有的生活，都是避孕用品催生的直接結果。現在，我意識到自己是何等幸運。

我是在德克薩斯州的一個天主教家庭里長大的。我從來沒有猜想到，未來有一天，我會在世界各地談論避孕用品的好處，當然也從未想象過我會公開談論自己的節育經驗。但最近這些日子，我做了很多這方面的事情。

在比爾和我創建我們的基金會之后，一切都改變了。在海外考察期間，我發現許多婦女懷孕過早或過晚，還有很多婦女的懷孕頻率遠遠超出其身體的承受能力。在一些社區，我遇到的每個人都認識一位死于分娩的婦女。在另一些社區，我遇到的每位婦女都失去了一個孩子。還有更多的母親極度渴望不要再次懷孕，因為她們無力喂養，還需要照顧現有的孩子。我開始明白為什么即使我不在那里談論避孕，婦女們仍然會不斷地提及這個話題。

與這些婦女相處一段時間后，我發現自己不可能拒絕施以援手。我也開始回想避孕用品給我自己的生活帶來了哪些變革性影響。

我的三個孩子都是相隔三年出生。直到研究生畢業，并在微軟工作十年之后，我才有了第一個孩子。所有這一切并非偶然。我的家庭、事業和如今擁有的生活，都是避孕用品催生的直接結果。現在，我意識到自己是何等幸運。

甚至在我寫這篇文章之際，世界上仍然有多達2.25億婦女不想懷孕，但無法獲得現代避孕用品。美國全球衛生政策最近的改變，很快就將進一步推高這個數字。當我們繼續辯論這個話題時，我認為所有人都必須站在婦女的角度理解其利害關系——避孕事關這些婦女的家庭和未來。

對于這些婦女來說，規劃懷孕時機的能力是一件生死攸關的大事。僅在去年，計劃生育工具就幫助避免了12.4萬名婦女死亡。更健康的婦女擁有更健康的孩子，所以避孕的好處將惠及幾代人。當婦女讓孩子的出生日期至少間隔三年時，這些孩子存活一年的幾率是其他孩子的兩倍，活到五歲的幾率比其他孩子高出35%。

此外，避孕用品經常是一位婦女的家庭能否擺脫貧困的決定性因素。研究表明，通常情況下，獲得計劃生育工具的婦女不僅孩子少，而且擁有更高的個人和家庭收入。這些孩子接受教育的時間更長，這也將增加下一代的經濟潛力。

在這些統計數據的背后，是許多震撼人心的故事。幾年前，我在肯尼亞碰到一位婦女，她剛剛開始經營一門用牛仔布碎片縫制背包的小生意。她希望這筆新收入將幫助她的三個孩子過上更好的生活，但她非常清醒地意識到，這門生意能否做下去，完全取決于她延遲下一次懷孕的能力。

去年春天在印度遇到的一位婦女，向我講述了一個類似的故事。她打算在最小的女兒剛到上學年齡之后就立刻回去上班。她憧憬著這份額外收入將給她的家庭生活帶來多大的改善，但她如此興奮還有一個簡單的原因：她非常熱愛教師這門工作。避孕用品不僅賦予她經濟上的權力，也讓她有機會追逐自己的夢想。

現如今，當我遇到一些仍然不相信避孕用品應該在其政策議程上占有一席之地的領導人時，我會告訴他們：如果你希望孩子們有機會擁有一個健康的未來，如果你希望婦女有機會幫助她們的家庭脫貧致富，如果你希望窮國有機會成為富國，那么你就必須關心避孕問題。

證據和經驗表明，被賦權的婦女是進步的驅動者、財富的創造者，以及世界上最強大的變革力量。我在海外遇到的婦女已做好準備，并且愿意為一個更加美好的未來做出貢獻。我們有責任確保她們擁有這個機會。

梅琳達?蓋茨是比爾和梅林達?蓋茨基金會的聯席主席。該基金會日前發布了其年度信。（財富中文網）

譯者：Kevin

Growing up in a Catholic household in Texas, I never would have guessed that I would one day travel around the world talking about the benefits of contraceptives. I certainly never imagined that I’d speak out publicly about my own experience with family planning. But these days, I’m doing a lot of both.

Everything changed when Bill and I started our foundation. I started traveling to places where women were getting pregnant too young, too old, and too often for their bodies to handle. I visited communities where everyone I met knew a woman who had died in childbirth. I visited communities where every woman I met had lost a child. I met still more mothers who were desperate not to get pregnant again because they couldn’t afford to feed and take care of the children they already had. And I began to understand why, even though I wasn’t there to talk about contraceptives, women kept bringing them up anyway.

After spending time with these women, I found it impossible to turn my back on them. I thought about them all the time. I also started reflecting on just how transformative contraceptives have been in my own life.

It’s no accident that my three kids were born three years apart—or that I didn’t have my first child until I’d finished graduate school and devoted a decade to my career at Microsoft. My family, my career, my life as I know it are all the direct result of contraceptives. And now, I realize how lucky that makes me.

Even as I write this, there are 225 million women in the world who do not want to get pregnant but do not have access to modern contraceptives. A recent change to U.S. global health policy will soon drive that number up even higher. And as we continue to debate this issue, I think it’s important that all of us understand its stakes from the perspective of the women whose families and futures hang in the balance.

For many of these women, the ability to plan their pregnancies is nothing less than a matter of life and death. Last year alone, family planning tools helped avert the deaths of 124,000 women. Healthier women have healthier children, so the impact of contraceptives ripples across generations. When women space the births of their children by at least three years, their babies are twice as likely to survive their first year of life—and 35% more likely to live to see their fifth birthday.

What’s more, contraceptives are often a key determining factor in whether a woman is able to lift her family out of poverty. Research shows that women with access to family planning tools not only tend to have fewer children, they also tend to have higher individual and household incomes. Their kids spend more time in school, increasing the economic potential of the next generation, too.

The stories behind these statistics are powerful and personal. A few years ago, I met a woman in Kenya who had just started a small business sewing backpacks out of denim scraps. She hoped this new income would help her give her three kids a better life, but she was very aware that her ability to keep the business at all depended on her ability to delay her next pregnancy.

A woman I met in India last spring told me a similar story. She was planning to go back to work as soon as her youngest daughter was old enough to start school. And while she was excited about what the extra income would mean for her family, she was also excited simply because she loved her job as a teacher. Contraceptives not only empowered her economically—they empowered her to be who she wanted to be in the world.

These days, when I meet with leaders who still aren’t convinced that contraceptives deserve a place on the agenda, here’s what I tell them: If you care about giving children a chance at a healthy future, if you care about giving women a chance to take their families from poverty to prosperity, and if you care about giving poor countries the chance to become rich ones, then you must care about contraceptives.

Both evidence and experience show that empowered women are drivers of progress, creators of wealth, and the world’s greatest force for transforming societies. The women I met overseas are ready and willing to contribute to a better future for all of us. We should take it on ourselves to make sure they have that chance.

Melinda Gates is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation released its annual letter on Tuesday.