BANGKOK — The first Thai national population program developed in the 1970s — around the same time the United States established Title X, a federal program designed to provide affordable birth control and reproductive care to low-income populations.
Since then, the two nations’ programs have diverged. Thai leaders largely united behind progressive family planning policies and encouraging contraceptive use, while the U.S. program has been caught in the political crossfire, tied to the controversial issue of abortion.
A 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning the federal right to an abortion has spurred other nations to mull how that change in U.S. policy, and others related to reproductive rights, will reverberate elsewhere.
