Dr. Mimi Zieman, an Atlanta-based OB/GYN, speaks in front of a 20-foot-tall inflatable statue of an IUD to celebrate World Contraception Day. Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder
What’s the best way to celebrate World Contraception Day?
For some reproductive health advocates, the answer is clear: By breaking out a whimsical, 20-foot-tall inflatable statue of an IUD, affectionately known as Freeda Womb.
The art installation, which belongs to the nonpartisan organization Americans for Contraception, was also part of a 2024 tour aimed at increasing public awareness about contraception that included state capitols, the Philadelphia LOVE statue and even Burning Man. Spokesperson Liz Ernst said the statue serves both educational and metaphorical purposes.
“Many people do not know what an IUD looks like,” Ernst said, adding that its appearance in Georgia aims “to draw attention to two converging crises: A national assault on contraception, and Georgia’s own health emergency.”
Outside Georgia’s state Capitol in Atlanta on Friday, advocates gathered alongside state lawmakers to call attention to what they see as growing threats to reproductive health access for Georgia residents.
State Rep. Dr. Michelle Au, a Johns Creek Democrat and anesthesiologist who has been a longtime advocate of reproductive rights, argued that a lack of access to health care for Georgia residents can lead to riskier pregnancies.
“Here in Georgia, you have a much higher chance of not having health insurance before pregnancy,” she said. “So that means conditions like high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, depression were all much more likely to have gone untreated prior to you getting pregnant, and that makes pregnancy harder.”
Au said that existing health disparities for pregnant Georgians combined with the state’s six-week abortion ban make access to birth control all the more important.
“It is hard to be a pregnant patient in Georgia, so protecting access to contraception, protecting the freedoms and the ability to take personal responsibility for our choices should be something we can all champion unequivocally.”
In Georgia, lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill earlier this year to protect access to in vitro fertilization treatment in the wake of an Alabama court decision that ruled frozen embryos are children under state law. But a push to expand those protections to contraception has not gained momentum in Georgia.
Democrats have pushed measures that would protect access to contraception. Late in the 2025 legislative session, Georgia Republicans championed a bill codifying birth control access that did not advance but remains alive for next year.
For reproductive health advocates, the lack of action on the state level to protect access to contraception is troubling, especially given the benefits that birth control provides for a variety of different health conditions.
“For many people, birth control is about much more than preventing pregnancy,” said Alicia Stallworth, the Southeast campaigns director at the nonprofit organization Reproductive Freedom for All. “It’s about managing painful periods, something I myself have dealt with due to uterine fibroids.”
Dr. Mimi Zieman, an Atlanta-based OB/GYN, also criticized Georgia’s ban on abortions after six weeks, cautioning that rollbacks of birth control access could follow. She also urged political leaders to enact policies that protect reproductive freedom.
“Abortion bans and contraceptive restrictions are two sides of the same coin,” she said. “When lawmakers mislabel birth control as abortifacients as a motive to limit access to birth control pills, morning after pills, IUDs and implants — which they are doing right now — or propose fetal personhood bills, they make it harder for physicians to provide evidence-based care.”
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