World Population Awareness

United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) September 1994, Cairo, Egypt

Delegates from 179 nations and thousands of non-governmental organizations met and came to a consensus on an historic shift in policies to address rapid population growth. The agreed-upon Programme of Action was a departure from setting demographic targets, adopting instead a 20-year plan focused on

1. Empowering women and girls in the economic, political, and social arenas 2. Removing gender disparities in education 3. Integrating family planning with related efforts to improve maternal and child health 4. Increasing efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases 5. Increasing financial and human resources commitments 6. Strengthening cooperation between the public and private sectors in implementing these goals.

The Cairo conference put an end to the concept of "population control." Smaller families and slower population growth depend not on "control" but on free choice - the idea, borne out by 30 years of experience, that most women, given the choice, will have fewer children than their mothers did. UNPFA 1999

UNFPA Does Not Support Abortion Services Or Information Anywhere

To put the record straight regarding the United Nations Population Fund and abortion, UNFPA does not support abortion services or information anywhere, nor do we provide equipment for performing abortions. The reproductive health and safe motherhood kits provided in Kosovo contain only standard equipment, including vacuum aspirators, which are used to help in delivery.

Women do not want to have abortions; they want not to be pregnant. Every rational observer agrees that helping women avoid unwanted pregnancy is the most effective way to fight abortion. That is what UNFPA does. The human right to choose the size and spacing of the family has been recognized internationally since 1968. Persistent misrepresentation of our work by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and his supporters only puts back the day when all women can exercise this right.

Alex Marshall Chief of Media Services United Nations Population Fund New York Letter to the Editor, Washington Post

Countries Committed to Population Issues and Reproductive Health, New Global Survey Shows

Family planning policies are established around the world, and the use of family planning is on the rise. Population and gender issues are becoming institutionalized, and women are getting more involved. However obstacles impede development efforts. The 20-year Cairo programme represented a new vision about population and development. Responses from 169 countries report the steps they have taken to implement the measures related to population, gender equality, reproductive rights and health. It also presents actions still needed to achieve the goals. A significant progress has been achieved and the challenge during the next 10 years is to build on this progress. Countries have a sense of awareness and are defining and focusing on national priorities. Global consensus is critical to halving extreme poverty by 2015. More than 90% of countries have integrated family planning and safe motherhood into their health care and integrated reproductive health education into school curricula. Many have established AIDS programmes to deal with the pandemic; and also migration and population ageing programmes. The most notable obstacles are the inadequate financial resources by donor countries. rw

Latin America and Caribbean to Adopt Text on Population and Development

At a San Juan, Puerto Rico meeting, the US is set to join in the declaration by Latin American and Caribbean countries reaffirming support for the Programme of Action of the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. The Programme is on reproductive health and rights to eradicate poverty, reduce social inequalities and eliminate the gender gap. The reaffirmation document was adopted last March in Santiago, Chile. At that forum, the U.S. had expressed the lone dissent, dissociating itself from the Santiago Declaration. Washington decided to join the consensus after participants agreed to note the report of the preliminary meeting. rw

Angola: Families Living Standards Improved - UNPF Director

In Luanda the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) has scored progress towards improving the families living standards, with school enrollment and life expectancy on the rise. The number of women and couples choosing their reproduction spacing is rising, with many taking measures to fight HIV. Women and adolescents are advised on the sexually transmitted diseases prevention and take measures to protect themselves against violence and bad treatment. rw

Malaysia: Poor Nations Urged to Cast Away Outdated Religious Tenets to Improve Women's Lot

At the opening of a two-day ministerial meeting of Nonaligned Movement members on the advancement of women, Malaysia's prime minister said that developing countries, especially Muslim nations, must challenge outdated customs and religious teachings that keep their women poor and powerless. Groups opposed to the empowerment of women have often used religion and cultural norms to perpetuate discrimination. It takes courage and fortitude to challenge long held and deeply ingrained beliefs about the role of women in society, particularly if religion is the main reason for their subjugation. Women in some parts of the world have become more emancipated, but continue to be marginalized and discriminated against in many Muslim countries. Women still suffer from a lack of education, resources, and job insecurity. The situation is worse in countries torn by war and armed conflicts and are raped, tortured, maimed and subjected to unspeakable crimes. Ministers were expected at the meeting to issue a declaration pledging to protect women from war and diseases and provide them with more political and economic power. A draft proposes wide-ranging measures as well as affirmative action policies to eliminate gender discrimination. The countries are expected to express their grave concern over the suffering of Palestinian and Syrian women under Israeli occupation, according to the draft. The Non-Aligned Movement is a group of poor nations that tried to stay neutral during the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, the movement has continued to work to reverse the marginalization of Third World countries in world affairs. rw

Trust Texas Women

A federal court just gave Texas's demeaning and invasive mandatory ultrasound the green light. Enforcement could potentially begin as early as January 31.

Send a letter to Texas media NOW—let them know that this ruling is unjust and hurts women. Click on the link in the headline or left arrow

U.S.: Roe Vs Wade is 39 Years Old Today

39 years ago the courts recognized the right of women to make personal, private medical decisions, to control their bodies, their reproductive health, and their lives.

Planned Parenthood has set up a website - www.SinceRoe.com - to show the world exactly what Roe has meant in the past and still means today. We've got a lot to fight for, and a lot to lose. Please, take a look and share it far and wide. Even better, add your own comment about how Roe v. Wade has made a difference in your life.

Despite the broad, mainstream support for upholding Roe, some politicians are as determined as ever to overturn it and strip women of the rights we've held for nearly 40 years.

U.S.: Trust Women Week March

Do you trust women to make their own medical decisions? Join the Trust Women Week National Online March today. I hope you'll pick up a virtual sign and march with me today! Click on the link in the arrows or the headline to take action.

The last year has seen unprecedented attacks on women's access to care and on the fundamental right of every woman to make her own medical decisions — not just in Washington, but in states around the country. Just last year, 36 states enacted a record 135 provisions limiting access to reproductive health care, including 92 measures restricting abortion.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund has joined 70 other organizations in the National Online March for Trust Women Week to show just how many of us are willing to stand up for women's health.

Despite the setbacks, 2011 also proved that we can achieve tremendous victories when we stand together and speak with one voice. Not only did we secure no-cost birth control for women, but we're seeing some of the effects of the Affordable Care Act take hold.

U.S.: Plan B Emergency Contraceptive: Tell Obama: Keep Politics Out of Science

The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently overruled the experts at the Food and Drug Administration and kept the Plan B emergency contraceptive from being available over-the-counter to all women. So, girls under 16 will still need a prescription.

There was never any scientific or medical reason for the age restriction, and the FDA commissioner was poised to remove it - see http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/ucm282805.htm . Not only will young women - under the age of 17 - still need a prescription for this important medication, but all women will still need to ask a pharmacist for it, ensuring that the medication will be kept behind the pharmacy counter, not on the shelves. This undermines all women's access to a safe, effective way to help avoid an unintended pregnancy.

Greater availability of emergency contraception has the potential to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy among young women. Since this was a decision made by the administration, it is a decision they can choose to reverse. Please take just a moment and ask President Obama to reconsider the decision on Plan B by clicking on the link in the headline above.

U.S.: Obama Administration to Decide Birth Control Coverage

Earlier this year, an expert panel recommended that all forms of prescription birth control should be covered without co-pays under all new health insurance plans. The Obama administration accepted this recommendation but included an exemption for certain religious employers. That wasn't enough for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) or the Catholic Health Association (CHA). The USCCB is calling the birth control provision a violation of their religious liberty and demanding a vast expansion of the refusal clause. If they have their way, experts estimate that at least a million women across the country will not have access to this new and valuable benefit.

The proposed rule is only a draft and a final decision will be made soon. It's time that the White House heard from those of us who support contraceptive coverage for everyone. Tell President Obama that this benefit is critical to the health and well-being of all American families and that nobody should be denied this important coverage because of the "conscience" of another.

U.K.: Morning-After Pill the Choice for 50% of Young Women

The morning-after pill is the contraceptive of choice. A survey of 500 students found nearly half used the pill. 7 in 10 of those who took it did so because they hadn't used any other form of precaution.

The drug was advertised last month and is on sale online as well as pharmacies.

Critics claim easy availability of emergency contraception will encourage women to have unprotected sex.

The latest study was carried out among students in their late teens and early 20s in SW London.

A fifth said they had had more than one sexual partner in a week and one in ten claimed to have slept with at least two women in one day.

A third said they did not regularly use condoms, leaving them at risk of sexually transmitted infections.

When the morning-after pill was first approved for use in the UK, assurances were given that it would be used only in exceptional circumstances and under the control of doctors.

The morning-after pill is lulling young women into a false sense of security, exposing them to increased risk of sexually transmitted infections. Sex education isn't getting through to people.

The morning-after pill was designed for occasional use only. It is important it doesn't replace regular contraception methods. rw

U.S.: Urgent House Vote on Eliminating US Contribution to UN Population Fund

Within the next week, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bill that would eliminate the entire U.S. contribution to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Currently, the U.S. gives UNFPA $40 million a year to support a wide range of programs benefiting women in the developing world, including family planning, obstetric care, and prevention of HIV/AIDS.

This would have a catastrophic effect on the health and survival of women in the developing world and would only increase the number of unsafe abortions. Call your U.S. Representative and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and urge them to defeat any effort to cut funding for UNFPA. The House switchboard number is (202)225-3121.

Around the world, 215 million women want to prevent or delay pregnancy but are not using a modern method of contraception. UNFPA helps fulfill this unmet need by increasing access to modern contraceptives.

UNFPA's core programs expand access to reproductive health care for the poor and other hard to reach groups, including refugees and displaced persons, help mothers survive pregnancy and childbirth, deliver healthy newborns, enable couples to determine the number and spacing of their children and reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS. UNFPA also supports data collection and research to encourage appropriate population and development policies, activities to improve the status of women, and advocacy to galvanize political and financial backing for reproductive health care and development. UNFPA also plays an important leadership role in global efforts to prevent and repair obstetric fistula, to eradicate female genital mutilation, and to improve access to reproductive health supplies, including contraceptives and condoms.

Editor's note: For a look at some of the lies being propagated on this issue, look at http://www.pop.org/content/urgent-action-item-letter-to-congress-oppose-forced-abortion-defend-kemp-kasten-565 ... while a counterargument is provided at http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/fact-v-fiction/fiction-unfpa-supports-coerced-abortion-and-forced-sterilization-china

Navigating the Turbulent Waters of Religion and Women's Rights: An Interview with Thoraya Obaid

Thoraya Obaid, a proud Muslim and Saudi Arabian citizen, just completed ten years as Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In her reflections, she said:

"My father was a devout Muslim who took very seriously the first principle in the Quran which is about learning. He insisted that his daughters get a good education and he never interfered with my life choices.

"It was clear from the day I started at UNFPA that it was the most controversial of the UN agencies. The attacks were strongest during the Bush 43 administration years, but we have been attacked all the time, including by feminist groups that fear that UNFPA has 'sold out'".

The attacks come only from the United States. Recent Republican administrations have withdrawn United States funding from UNFPA, citing the "Kemp Kasten Amendment" which was enacted to ensure that no US money goes to any organizations that participates in the management of coercive population policies.

"The issue is that UNFPA works in China, and China is considered by some in Congress and the US administration (when there is a Republican President), to be subject to the Kemp Kasten Amendment. UNFPA's work in China has been reviewed many times, and always with the conclusion that UNFPA has a positive influence on China's policies. The Bush administration sent a team to China that reached the same conclusion, but that made no difference. Throughout President Bush's tenure, Congress appropriated funds for UNFPA but Bush would not release them. It all was the result of the influence of the religious right.

"Democratic Presidents (Clinton and Obama) release the funding, after deducting the small amounts that would be spent on UNFPA's China program; we are asked to put the funds in a separate account and be held accountable for it."

Thoraya Obaid met several times with the Holy See's representative to the United Nations. They agreed to disagree. It was significant that they opened a channel that would allow them to communicate if times got tough. On the ground, in many parts of the world, we work all the time with the Catholic Church on common agendas such as ending violence against women.

"We are working to build relationships and partnerships with a wide range of groups, including but also going beyond the traditional feminist/reproductive health groups. It is important to broaden the base of understanding and support and find ways to support each other. Some groups still have doubts about UNFPA's commitment and approach and some are uneasy specifically about our effort to work with faith groups, fearing that it signals an erosion in our commitment to human rights. It absolutely does not. Today, over 400 faith based groups form the Global Network of Faith-based Organizations for Population and Development.

"By dealing with cultural values and religious beliefs, we aim to promote human rights, never to accept the status quo or harmful practices but rather to expand the reach of the human rights agenda."

"There are some things that we, UNFPA, cannot address and discuss, while some things women's groups can address less effectively.

"Abortion is the most controversial topic. We, UNFPA, are mandated to consider abortion within the context of public health, but never as a right, as some NGOs do. That is a clear parameter from the ICPD Programme of Action, the famous and much contested clause 8.25 which set out the position towards abortion. It states that abortion should never be a form of family planning and that when family planning services are available and accessible that lowers abortions. Abortion is a national issue to be decided by national laws and legislations. Where it is legal, it should be done under good medical conditions. Some women's groups approach the issue differently, viewing abortion in the context of a woman's right to choose. So, though we have many common interests, we deal with them differently.

"Thus there are areas where we can work together with a wide range of religious leaders and women's groups - violence against women, child marriage, and female genital cutting are among them. On the more controversial issues, we need to give some more space and time and show mutual respect for our differences. rw

Chile;: President Stands Her Ground on Emergency Contraception

When Chilean President Michelle Bachelet announced that the country would provide emergency contraception to "everyone who requires it" she was aware of the storm that would ensue.

Six years ago, as health minister, Bachelet proposed giving sex abuse victims access to the emergency contraceptive pill, at drugstores by doctor's prescription.

A flurry of lawsuits, counter suits, injunctions, and constitutional challenges have pitted pro-life forces led by the Catholic Church against Bachelet's government, backed by women's rights organizations and health professionals.

Before the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling and banned the sale of Postinal, considering it abortifacent, the governmental drug licensing agency had already approved a second product, Postinor-2.

Even though Postinor-2 has the same components as Postinal, the Santiago Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs could not represent unborn babies and that scientific or ethical determinations about when life begins are out of the court's realm of competency.

Bachelet signed into law the Regulations on Fertility that permit women over 14 to obtain Postinor-2 without parental consent.

Chilean law enacted in recent years lowered the statutory age at which minors may be tried as adults and the age of informed sexual consent to 14 years of age from 16.

Mayors of the Independent Democratic Union party, influenced by traditional Catholic doctrine, vowed to block the distribution of emergency contraception in public clinics in their municipalities, while congressional advocates have filed protective orders against these mayors. A final ruling from the Constitutional Tribunal is expected later this year.

Midwives or doctors at public health clinics administer Postinor-2, prefaced by counseling on birth control methods.

Family planning programs in Chile began in the mid-1960s, when an average 550 women died annually due to complications related to childbirth. During the same period, and with therapeutic abortion still legal in Chile, an estimated 300 women died each year as a consequence of illegal abortions.

Then-President Eduardo Frei Montalva a devout Catholic, put aside his personal beliefs to initiate free distribution of birth control methods to save women's lives. The 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet maintained this family planning practice, but a lack of consensus within the Junta on penalties delayed the banning of therapeutic abortion until Bishop Jorge Medina interceded to urge the regime to enact the prohibition in September 1989, six months before the inauguration of the first democratically elected government in 17 years. rw

Family Planning and the Path to Progress

Obama pledged to restore the money while signing an order reversing a move by Bush that banned American government aid for family-planning organizations that, promoted or conducted abortions.

Sixty percent of people living in poverty are women. Two-thirds of the 960 million illiterate adults are women. Seventy percent of children out of school are girls. Women are the givers and keepers of life.

A cofounder of Friends of the UNFPA, was elated to see the Global Gag Rule gone and to see President Obama's statement of support. As of 2009, our movement, (begun in 2002 when the Bush Administration refused to release $34 million) asking at least one dollar from 34 million Americans, has garnered $4,000,000.

The money has permitted UNFPA to increase its support for family planning, to train doctors and midwives, save women's lives in childbirth, repair obstetric fistulas, discouraged forced early marriage, and to educate adolescents about AIDS.

By 2050 the world's population is expected to rise to nine billion people, all of whom will be seeking food, water, and other resources. This growth in population will exacerbate every environmental and humanitarian crisis we face today. Gender inequality is at the base of population and environmental issues. Hillary Clinton stated: Of particular concern is the plight of women and girls who comprise the majority of the world's unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid.

UNFPA offers the family planning that allows women to choose if and when have children. In the world there is a vast unmet demand for family planning, that can mitigate the worst of humanitarian and environmental crises. rw

What's the Status of Women Got to Do with Family Planning? Everything!

Sixty-million women and girls are "missing" in Asia, thanks to sex-selective abortion, female infanticide and neglect of the girl child. Millions of girls are not sent to school and are forced to marry at young ages. When a girl goes to school and learns how to read, she is empowered throughout her entire life. She marries later, has fewer children, sends them to school, earns income and participates more in the life of her community. Illiteracy leads to poverty and powerlessness, the root causes of violence against women, sex trafficking, and other ills.

The Cairo Consensus of 1994 promised universal access to primary education. Unfortunately, this agreement has not been honored. Lack of access to reproductive health services means that more than 500,000 women die in childbirth every year and 40 per minute seek unsafe abortion. Millions of women who play by all the rules of faithfulness in marriage contract the AIDS virus.

Because of the low status of women in many cultures, and of religions of all stripes which limit the spheres in which women and girls can participate, the world is digging an unnecessary hole for itself.

The UNFPA is a leader in the fight for the education, health and human rights of the world's women. In 2006, 180 countries allocated funds for UNFPA but not our own. rw

President Bush's Appeal to Religious Fundamentalists

Opposition to abortion is a cornerstone of the Bush administration. The President blocks funds for UNFPA, the international agency that has prevented more abortions than any other policy.

Congress votes to contribute U.S. funds to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the but when these bills reach President Bush's desk, they die, because China is one of the more than 100 countries in which UNFPA operates.

President Bush is convinced, as were conservative Presidents before him, that China's national family planning program is driven by forced abortion and coercive sterilization. The Chinese government has denied this allegation for more than 20 years. China, the world's most populous country, employs draconian measures to put the brakes on further population growth. These have included reducing food rations, reducing living space and denying school choice to parents who have children beyond a couple's first child.

It has not been resolved, however, whether the Chinese government is perpetrating coercion. Beyond the moral repugnance of government dictating bedroom decisions, it is a strategy that is unnecessary and likely unworkable. Studies indicate that when couples have access to family planning information, education and supplies, they choose to limit their family size.

To correct the administration's policy, a bill in the House of Representatives calling for a $34 million fiscal year 2008 appropriation to UNFPA, would ensure detailed presidential accountability for refusing to release these congressionally appropriated funds.

In the 32 Chinese counties that receive UNFPA assistance, not only have maternal deaths declined, but abortions have decreased from 24 per 1,000 women to 10 per 1,000 women. rw

At 7 Billion, Contraception for Pollyanna

Pollyanna thinking tells us that population issues are not in need of attention, that asking our planet to support 1.59 million more people every week is a reasonable request. After all, despite the fact that we went from 1.6 billion to over 6 billion and during the same period went through two world wars, we made exponential leaps in human longevity and living standards.

But in 1999 oil prices were predicted to be $28 per barrel by 2020 and today it is $94 per barrel; in 1999 food prices were predicted to stay near their historical lows through 2010 and then fall but today they are at all time highs and 1 billion are undernourished and can't afford to buy sufficient food, despite the fact that in 1998 the Director of Bread for the World, Richard Hoehn, declared hunger would be eliminated in 15 years.

However, leaders listen to the pollyannas and consequently funding for family planning information and services has been reduced significantly since the 1994 Cairo conference on population. Beyond morally failing the women of the world, this has caused unplanned and unwanted childbearing and a terrible toll on health.

Funding for family planning information and services needs to increase dramatically. Entertainment-education programs, like radio and televisions soap operas, are particularly powerful in modeling daughter education, child spacing, and family planning use to mass audiences.

One radio soap opera in Ethiopia was listened to by half the country resulting in a 113% increase in the number of Ethiopians who began to use family planning themselves. Not because they were forced to, but because they wanted to.

Unfounded fears of side effects, male opposition, religious intolerance, and traditions of large family size are the main reasons for non-use of contraception.

Call Your Senator About An Upcoming Battle in the War on Women

As early as today the Senate will be debating a "minibus" appropriations bill. It contains funding for the State Department and various foreign assistance programs, including international family planning and reproductive health.

The Senate Appropriations Committee version was a victory for women. 1) It increases the current funding level for international family planning assistance for the 2012 Fiscal Year to $700 million, including $40 million for the United Nations Population Fund. 2) It makes permanent an executive order issued by President Obama that repealed the "global gag rule".

Unfortunately, next week a number of amendments are expected that would most likely reduce the amount of money for international family planning and reproductive health, eliminate funding for the United Nations Population Fund, and block the language that would permanently repeal the global gag rule.

According to research from the Guttmacher Institute, for every $10 million cut from the international family planning and reproductive health program:

* 610,000 fewer women and couples would receive contraceptive services and supplies;

* 190,000 more unintended pregnancies, and 82,000 more unplanned births, would occur;

* 83,000 more abortions would take place (of which 60,000 would be unsafe);

* 500 more maternal deaths would occur;

* 2,300 more children would lose their mothers.

To help, call (202) 224-3121, tell the operator what state you are from, and ask to be connected to one or both of your U.S. Senators. Tell your Senators that you support full funding for international family planning and a permanent repeal of the "global gag rule."

The Birth Control Solution; Contraceptives No More Cause Sex Than Umbrellas Cause Rain

by Nicholas D. Kristof

Many of the global problems that confront us have a solution. It's called family planning, but it is starved of resources due to America's religious wars, which are partly responsible for the world's population to reach seven billion so soon after reaching 6 billion 12 years ago.

It took humans hundreds of thousands of years to reach the first billion, in 1804. It took another 123 years to reach two billion, in 1927. Since then, we've been passing these milestones like billboards along a highway.

In 1999, the United Nations' best projection was that the world wouldn't pass seven billion until 2013, but we reached it two years early.

Youth bulges in rapidly growing countries like Afghanistan and Yemen makes them more prone to conflict and terrorism. Booming populations also contribute to global poverty and make it impossible to protect virgin forests or fend off climate change.

Family planning works. Women in India average 2.6 children, down from 6 in 1950. Mexico's average is 2.2, down from 7 in 1965.

But women in Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Somalia, East Timor and Uganda all have six or more children each. There are women in rural Africa who have never heard of birth control. The Guttmacher Institute, a respected research group, estimate that 215 million women want to avoid getting pregnant but have no access to contraception.

It's not just contraception that's needed, but girls' education and women's rights - starting with an end to child marriages . Educated women tend to have fewer children.

The Population Institute came out with a report that said gender inequality has replaced lack of access to contraceptives as the biggest barrier to reducing birth rates.

We also need to find better contraceptives. A new breakthrough is an inexpensive vaginal ring that releases hormones, lasts a year and should not require a doctor. It could even contain medication to reduce the risk of an infection with the AIDS virus.

Republican presidents like Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush provided strong support for birth control, even though the Roman Catholic hierarchy was opposed, but then family planning became tarnished by overzealous and coercive programs in China and India, and contraception became entangled in America's abortion wars. Many well-meaning religious conservatives turned against it, and funding lagged. The result was, paradoxically, more abortions. When contraception is unavailable, the likely consequence is not less sex, but more pregnancy.

The U.N. says that contraception already prevents 112 million abortions a year, but the United Nations Population Fund is a bête noire for conservatives, even though, through contraception it may have reduced abortions more than any organization in the world.

Republicans want to cut more money from international family planning, resulting in more abortions and more women dying in childbirth. They also are trying to slash Title X Family Planning programs within the United States. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that in a year these domestic programs avert 973,000 unintended pregnancies, of which 406,000 would end in abortions. These programs also save taxpayers roughly $3.4 billion annually that would otherwise be spent on pregnancies and babies.

The good news is that a group of evangelical Christians, led by Richard Cizik of The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, is drafting a broad statement of support for family planning. It emphasizes that family planning reduces abortion and lives lost in childbirth. "Family planning is morally laudable in Christian terms because of its contribution to family well-being, women's health, and the prevention of abortion," it says.

As we greet the seven-billionth human, let's try to delay the arrival of the eight billionth. We should all be able to agree on voluntary family planning as a cost-effective strategy to reduce poverty, conflict and environmental damage. If you think family planning is expensive, you haven't priced babies.

Canada: Cash for Family Planning Group Approved; but Only Where Abortion is Illegal

Five countries will receive new funding from Canada for International Planned Parenthood Federation for maternal and child health projects: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania, Canada's Conservative government confirmed.

Planned Parenthood provides abortion services, counselling and training for health providers through local organizations in developing countries, but tailored its request to provide services only in countries where abortion is already illegal, to conform to the Harper government's "no abortion overseas" criteria.

The announcement comes two days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced 28 new projects would receive funding through his government's G8 Muskoka Initiative, which pledged a total of $1.1 billion in new money over five years.

Robinson: More Funds for Family Planning

Mary Robinson was the first woman president of Ireland (1990-1997), UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002, and is now chairwoman of the Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health, formed by current and former presidents, vice presidents and prime ministers of Brazil, Finland, Latvia, Liberia, Malawi, New Zealand and Norway.

Global reproductive rights activists are asking world leaders attending the United Nations in New York this week to deliver on promises made 17 years ago at the UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, when they agreed to make contraceptive services available for women all over the world by 2015.

World population will soon hit 7 billion, and more than 200 million women in the poorest nations of Africa and Asia are in need of the family planning services they would gladly use to delay or space their children, if modern contraceptives were available.

Mary Robinson fought her first political battle in the 1960s as a member of the Irish Senate, pushing for legislation to legalize family planning. Then not even married women could use the contraceptive pill, unless they had cycle regulation problems -- and many married women lied to their doctors saying they had such problems.

While Robinson thought it would be easy to draft a law legalizing contraception, it was a difficult battle, but contraception was finally legalized for married women by the Supreme Court in 1974.

Every year, more than 358,000 women die in the developing regions of the world from pregnancy-related causes. The failure to support the health needs of developing countries is now a global problem, one with long-term implications for the economic, environmental and political health of the entire world.

Women who have access to family planning have fewer children, and the ones they do have are healthier and better educated. Investments in reproductive health are reflected in lower carbon emissions and a reduced likelihood of civil unrest, as smaller families help lift communities out of poverty and reduce pressure on food security, scientists report.

In some countries, including the United States, reproductive health has become a hot-button political issue domestically, and it is often incorrectly associated with support for abortion.

The UN estimates that an additional $3.6 billion to extend family planning in the poorest nations would save lives -- and cut the costs associated with maternal and infant death by $5.1 billion. Although traditionally family planning services have been funded by donor countries, now the largest increases in money for these services come from developing nations, which have learned that this investment is cost-effective and can provide an immediate dividend in economic development and peace and stability.

We are fighting for the rights of millions of women who have no doctors and no tools with which to prevent unwanted pregnancies -- as many as 75 million of them every year. In those countries, it's a matter of life and death.

As we look down the road to sharing the world with 10 billion people -- projected to happen in 2100 -- it may someday be a matter of life and death for all of us.

Calling Your Lawmaker is Also Very Effective.

Members of the Senate Telephone Directory
If you contact your lawmaker via email, make sure you include your full name and mailing address so that they can verify that you are a constituent.
You may research the matter from the links above and from WOA's Funding Page, and then come up with a letter that you can send your legislator or notes from which you can talk when you go see your representative at her/his Washington DC office or at their local office.

Sample Letter to a Member of the US House of Representatives Supporting Title X

I wish to appeal for your support for the maximum possible funding for Title X of the Public Health Service Act--Domestic Family Planning Assistance which pays for gynecological and contraceptive services for poor US women. President Clinton's FY2000 budget contains $240 million for the Title X family-planning grant program. (Congress approved $237 million for FY1999 and $215 million for FY1998.)

Every public dollar spent for family planning services saves $4.40--over $3 in medical costs alone--that otherwise would be spent over the next two years to provide medical care, welfare benefits and other social services to pregnant women. Publicly funded family planning services prevent an average of 1.2 million unintended pregnancies each year, including 516,000 abortions (1995 data).

Public support for family planning services for those who would be unable to afford them is a cost-effective way of reducing the public costs of problems like aid to families with dependent children, poverty, drugs, prison over-crowding, crowded classrooms and numerous other costs that taxpayers support. Yet, despite all these benefits, funding for Title X has fallen 72% during 1980-98 (corrected for inflation). As a result, fewer than 50% of women eligible for Title X services now receive these services.

No Title X funding is used for abortions. In fact, Title X services significantly reduces the need for abortions by preventing unplanned pregnancies. (Nearly half of unintended pregnancies end in abor tion in the US.) About 60% of all pregnancies to US women are unplanned--about three million/year. But 76% of pregnancies to poor women are unplanned. In the US, the proportion of births that are unintended is as high as or higher than it is in 25 developing countries.

About 33 million US women are considered to be at risk for unintended pregnancy; more than 16 million are low-income women needing subsidized contraceptive services (1995 data).

Compared with other industrialized countries, US teenagers experience considerably higher rates of pregnancy, despite the fact that levels of adolescent sexual activity are about the same. The US teenage pregnancy rate is twice as high as in Eng land, France, Wales and Canada, and 9 times as high as in the Nether lands. One million US teenagers become pregnant every year, 85% unintentionally. Half of these pregnancies end in birth, a third in abortion, and the rest in miscarriage (1995 data). 73% of US teenagers who accidentally become pregnant are poor or low-income, even though overall only 38% of those aged 15-19 are poor or low-income. 54% of lower income teenagers who become pregnant choose to have an abortion (1995 data).

Sincerely, ...

14 Steps to An Effective Visit with Your Legislator

U.S.;: House Challenges Global Gag Rule

A bipartisan coalition led by Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) reintroduced a bill to overturn the global gag rule that prohibits family planning programs in developing nations that accept US aid from counseling women about abortions or advocating for legal abortion.

It rule was instituted by the Reagan administration, repealed by Clinton, but reinstituted by Bush. US dollars to foreign family planning programs cannot fund abortions overseas due to the 1973 Helms amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act. rw

A Bit of Good News on Foreign Aid

The Senate adopted by voice vote the Lugar-Feinstein amendment restoring $1.1 billion to the Senate Budget Resolution that had been previously stripped from the Administration's request for the Fiscal Year 2004 International Affairs Budget (also called the 150 Account). After the unanimous vote, the Senate's budget resolution now allocates $28.5 billion for the international affairs budget (which includes family planning). This was the Administration's full request for Fiscal Year 2004.

For a side-by-side of the FY 2003 and FY 2004 budget requests, see http://www.colead.org/FY-04%20Budget%20Request.htm As the pie chart graph at the bottom of this page notes, foreign international affairs assistance totals less than 1% of the total FY 04 budget of the U.S.

The Senate also more than cut in half the Administration's proposed tax cuts. Cutting taxes in order to generate deficits, which are then used to justify cuts in programs that include environmental protection, family planning, and foreign assistance, is a time-honored tradition on Capitol Hill. A smaller tax cut means less cuts to programs most Americans care about -- and millions of people in the developing world depend on.

Senate Committee Approves Permanent Ban on Global Gag Rule

Late July, the Senate Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment which permanently repeals the notorious Global Gag Rule, preventing a future President from unilaterally reinstating the policy. President Obama repealed the Gag Rule in the first week of his presidency, but the fact that the policy could be reinstated with the next Presidency has a chilling effect on US family planning efforts overseas. The amendment passed by a vote of 19-11.

The Committee also approved $700 million for international family planning, including $55 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The amount is $50 million over the current funding level, but less than the $716 million requested by President Obama, and less than the $735 million approved by a House subcommittee.

The amendment has not yet come before the full Senate.

Obama's "Population" Moves: Also Good for the Environment

President Obama has rescinded the Mexico City population policy and promised to restore funding to UNFPA. He means to revive U.S. leadership in support of family planning around the world, and to sustain the global environment.

These actions will help women realize their right to control their own fertility; and help prevent unwanted pregnancies.

But we must also address the fact that stabilizing population growth worldwide is critical if we are going to balance the number of people on the planet with its environmental base. The roles of family planning and per-capita resource consumption in achieving a sustainable environment cannot be understated. Serious attention must now be given to population issues, or environmental sustainability won't happen.

We have overstepped the boundaries on C02 emissions, resulting in climate change; water scarcity affects 1.1 billion people worldwide, including in the western U.S.; and misguided development has destroyed the habitat of many plant and animal species.

We seem to have forgotten that stabilizing earth's population is an essential part of achieving a sustainable environment. In 2009, our footprints don't come cheap in environmental terms.

Great Britain is among the industrialized nations beginning to take a serious look at the way family size affects the environment. Here in the U.S. we too can begin to consider whether two children might be sufficient if we want to be realistic about our collective environmental footprint. It's a subject for discussions, public education campaigns, and a new national awareness.

President Obama has given a sign that America recognizes its responsibility to lead the world in achieving a population-environmental balance. rw

Religious Left's Wrong-Minded Appeal on Global Gag Rule

Pro-life Obama has repealed the Mexico City "gag rule" which prevents American dollars from going to groups that offer abortion services. But some are urging the Obama administration to delay that until he can put it in a broader "abortion reduction" agenda.

First the religious left's explanation of what the Mexico City Policy or Global Gag Rule does is inaccurate. The Global Gag Rule was first put in place by Ronald Reagan, to deny funding to international family planning organizations unless they agreed to specific curtailments as set by the US on the medical services and information they provided to their patients. Health centers in developing nations, which help women and men plan their families and avoid unintended pregnancies, would not be allowed to provide abortions discuss abortion or even hang a poster that mentions abortion.

In countries like Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, imposition of the global gag rule has meant the loss of funds for the contraceptive supplies and services needed to prevent unintended pregnancies. If a woman is in need of a life or health saving abortion? The health center is censored from providing a referral or even telling her that is what she needs.

If you block funds to family planning organizations for family planning and contraception provision, this usually leads to abortion.

The Global Gag Rule was put in place to appease anti-choice voices. President Obama understands that these nods or gestures are are harmful to women and global society's efforts to grow and evolve.

The religious left is not helpful to anyone by perpetuating these false ideas. rw

Global Gag Rule: Just Repeal it

By Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY). .. President Obama and our new Congress can place American foreign policy firmly on the side of free speech, of women's health, and family planning, which is a cornerstone of social stability, economic growth, and public health in the developing world. And we can do it easily, with no cost to the taxpayers, by repealing the "Global Gag Rule," which was enacted by Ronald Reagan in 1984 and restored by George W. Bush. The rule restricts U.S. family planning assistance from going to foreign NGOs that use funding from any other source to perform abortions; provide counseling and referral for abortion; or lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their country.

It is responsible for untold misery and, has increased the number of unintended pregnancies and put millions of women's and children's lives at risk. The Bush Administration has resisted reasonable compromise. which passed Congress with the support of pro-choice and pro-life Members, but President Bush threatened to veto all funding for international aid to prevent it from becoming law.

Few actions would benefit more people with less effort, or send signal to the world that America is prepared once again to be a leader for individual rights, personal dignity, and commonsense policy that saves lives. rw

Top 5 Actions for the New Administration to Ensure Sexual and Reproductive Health

EngenderHealth is mobilizing efforts to improve global reproductive health. The first action is to overturn the Global Gag Rule, which was meant to target abortion providers, and over the last eight years it has had terrible consequences for the health and lives of poor women and their families in ways that have nothing to do with abortion. The domino effect from this policy has affected family planning services, maternal and child health care, and HIV services.

Obama has said that he intends to overturn this disastrous policy. rw

What Obama Should Do for Women

Women's rights activists see an open door to Barack Obama, and they plan to walk right in. They have a long list of recommendations for Obama, who is viewed as more receptive than his predecessor.

"For eight years, we have suffered under an administration that has suppressed science to the detriment of health and has done damage to constitutional and human rights values", said Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a letter to Obama. rw

Obama Will Fund Global Family Planning: US Lawmaker

Barack Obama will lift a freeze on funding for global family planning programs. The UNFPA will be funded.

The Obama transition team has not said what the president-elect intends to do upon taking office, though transition co-chair John Podesta said the incoming adminstration was reviewing where we can move forward.

Bush blocked funding for the UNFPA saying the UN agency supports coercive abortion methods in China. rw

Sen. Boxer Focuses on Abortion Rights in Calif. Race

Although the economy and jobs have been the "foremost" issues in California's Senate race, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) is "intent on highlighting the distinction" between her views on abortion rights and those of her Republican opponent, Carly Fiorina, the AP/San Jose Mercury News reports.

A new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California shows 39% of likely voters support Boxer -- who supports abortion rights in early stages of pregnancy -- while 34% favor Fiorina, who opposes abortion except in cases or rape, incest or to save a woman's life.

Boxer has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, NARAL Pro-Choice California, EMILY's List and the National Organization for Women. Fiorina has received endorsements from the antiabortion-rights groups California Pro-Life Council, the Susan B. Anthony List and National Right to Life.

Boxer says she knows that abortion is an issue that "can help drive voters her way." A director of the poll said that the issue could work in Boxer's favor if she can portray Fiorina's views as a threat to the status quo. 53% of Fiorina's supporters consider themselves "pro-choice," according to a recent poll.

US South Carolina;: Abortion Ultrasound Bill Likely to Change; Senate Passage Expected - with Exemptions for Rape, Incest Victims

A controversial South Carolina House-passed bill requiring women seeking an abortion to first view an ultrasound is on a path to pass the Senate though with exceptions for victims of rape and incest.

Other changes, including one that makes viewing the ultrasound an option, will face a tougher road.

The house narrowly defeated an amendment that would have created exceptions to the ultrasound requirements in the cases of rape or incest.

Several speakers told the panel they had abortions as young women and regretted the decision, emotionally, physically, and morally.

But an attorney, wife and mother, Kern-Fuller said she is "pro-life, pro-choice and pro-family."

"South Carolina is still trying to limit women's access to safe and affordable reproductive health care, and it is still trying to unconstitutionally dictate women's medical choices," Kern-Fuller said. We realize the state of South Carolina is going to pass a law requiring ultrasounds be viewed, said a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Health Systems. "But the more mainstream option is to give women the option to view ultrasound." rw

Japan Donates 2 Million for Poor Areas in Peru

Japan will donate two million dollars to improve health and education services for women and children in the impoverished Andean provinces of Ayacucho and Apurimac via the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security.

The project is to improve maternal health, childhood development and basic education to the populations where poverty levels exceed 78%.

The project will support training for health workers and raise awareness about nutrition, obstetrical treatment and reproductive health. rw

U.S.: The Battle to Ban Birth Control

Mary Worthington regards contraception as immoral and dangerous. This month she launched No Room for Contraception, a clearinghouse for arguments and personal testimonials on this subject. NRFC joins others on an anti-contraception Web. NRFC doesn't even address abortion; its sole purpose is to "prove" that the pill and the IUD cause health problems and destroy women's fertility and condoms lead to the spread of SRDs by making people believe that sex can be safe, that contraception destroys marriages by rendering sex an act of pleasure rather than one of procreation. The vast majority of Americans support access to birth control: even 80% of anti-choice Americans support women's access to contraception. With the exception of a dwindling number of Catholics, a majority of American women have used or regularly use some form of contraception. Supporters have pressured insurance companies to refuse coverage of contraception and are redefining the very meaning of pregnancy to classify contraceptive methods as abortion. Although its medical arguments are thinly veiled moral and religious arguments, the rising anti-contraception movement, echoed by the Catholic Church, is making significant inroads. After Roe v. Wade was decided, debate focused on abortion but (for anti-choicers) they are not separate issues. The National Right to Life affiliates have opposed legislation that would provide insurance coverage for contraception. Iowa Right to Life lists birth control methods, including the pill, the IUD, Norplant and Depo-Provera, as abortifacients. Contraception lessens the number of abortions. But once one understands what the true agenda of activists like Worthington is, and their attitude toward sexuality, the contradictions vanish. For them, sex should always be about procreation; since contraception prevents conception, it is immoral. They believe that women's biological destiny is to be mothers. Sex and the role of women are linked, because "if you can separate sex from procreation, you have given women the ability to participate in society on an equal basis with men." The anti-birth-control movement has seized recent headlines about emergency contraception to put forth its view that E.C. is tantamount to abortion. Anti-choice activists don't bother to distinguish between RU-486, the "abortion pill," which terminates an early pregnancy, and emergency contraception, which helps prevent pregnancy. The American Medical Association defines pregnancy as the moment when implantation occurs; the anti-choice movement, completely ignoring scientific fact, is attempting to redefine pregnancy as the moment when sperm and egg meet. Once a fertilized egg is considered a human life, it's just a hop to concluding that the standard birth-control pill is an abortifacient. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 15 states have fetal homicide laws that means that one can be convicted of manslaughter or murder for destroying a fertilized egg. The National Institutes of Health convened experts to evaluate the condom's effectiveness at preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and they concluded that correct condom use definitively protected against the spread of HIV and gonorrhea, and there was a strong probability of condom effectiveness for other STDs, including human papillomavirus (HPV). The findings were used to declare that condoms don't protect against HPV a wild misappropriation of fact that has nonetheless become a big part of the anti-choice argument against the condom's efficacy. Such subtle shifts have helped anti-choice activists to argue that condoms help spread STDs by giving users a false sense of security. One reason for the new push to restrict birth control may have to do with changes in the Catholic Church although many anti-contraception campaigners insist this has nothing to do with Catholicism. NRFC is filled with discussions of Catholic texts and Bible-study documents. Like the Catholic Church, NRFC opposes the use of contraception even within marriage as it leads to promiscuity, and furthers the idea the sex has nothing to do with childbearing or commitment. Contraception has given women the freedom to put off marriage, to go to college in greater numbers, to bring more wanted children into the world, and to find good jobs and thus bring more wealth into their families; and banning contraception would turn back the clock. rw

U.S.: Utah Among Nine States Considering Fetal Pain Legislation

House Bill 222 would compel Utah doctors to tell women seeking an abortion at 20 weeks or later that their fetus could feel pain, and require offering anesthetic for the fetus. Utah is one of nine states considering fetal pain legislation. In most cases, the legislation only requires that women be notified about possible fetal pain, but some measures state that fetuses feel pain 20 weeks after conception, while others make it a crime for medical providers to deny anesthesia to a fetus if the woman asks for it. In a bill now before Congress, doctors would have to read a script to patients, stating that Congress had determined that abortion causes fetuses as 20-weeks of gestation and later to feel pain. Women would be also required to sign a form stating their acceptance or rejection of fetal anesthetics. There's not consensus on the issue of fetal pain, indeed there is evidence that anesthetics present a risk to women's health. Abortion rights advocates say such laws put the fetus and pregnant woman in conflict potentially jeopardizing the health of the woman. The information that a doctor provides to a patient should be based on the best available science and proven medical practice. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said it knows of no scientific information that a fetus experiences pain. Research suggests the connection between the spinal cord and the brain begins sometime between 20 and 40 weeks of gestation. Doctors said that there is no protocol for administering anesthetic during an abortion; and that the process would differ from intrauteral surgeries, where a fetus can be sedated. Research from the Utah Department of Health indicates that the women who undergo an abortion at 20 weeks or later do so because either their own health is in jeopardy, or because of severe abnormalities that suggest the fetus is no longer viable. In 2003, only two Utah women had abortions after 20 weeks. rw

U.S.: Judges: Alito Unlikely to Overturn Roe

Judges who have served with Samuel Alito say he would push the Supreme Court to the right, likely favoring new abortion restrictions. Five current or former judges described Alito as thoughtful, intelligent and fair with respect for precedent-setting decisions and none thought he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. He is an intellectually honest man and doesn't have personal predilections to foist upon the American people but supports tighter abortion restrictions. They disputed liberal and conservative interest groups that the former Reagan lawyer is a right-wing ideologue. Senior Judge Edward Becker described Alito as more reserved than the caustic and sometimes divisive Scalia, who often seeks to dominate questioning. He writes opinions with no ideological overtones. Alito has written opinions that outlawed a school anti-harassment policy barring demeaning comments about race, religion or gender as overly broad; and struck down a state law barring companies from buying alcohol ads in college newspapers. Alito has been the lone dissenter on a number of cases, including a decision striking down a Pennsylvania spousal notification law for abortions. Some of Alito's colleagues say one reason is the modesty and collegiality of Alito. "Whatever quality you think a judge ought to have, whether it's scholarship or an ability to deliberate or fairness or temperance, Sam has each of these to a highest degree." rw

U.S.: Abortion Might Outgrow Its Need for Roe v. Wade

Technology is changing the future of abortion. Even if the court restricts the right to an abortion, the specter of a return to back-alley abortions is not likely. We have better antibiotics and surgical treatments. But also the advent of an inexpensive drug called misoprostol, which the FDA approved for treatment of ulcers, but which has been used in millions of self-administered abortions. This common prescription drug, often known as Cytotec, could emerge as a cheap, relatively safe alternative. Because it was never intended for use in abortions, it has not been widely tested for safety and effectiveness. The drug causes the uterus to contract and expel the embryo or fetus. In the US, misoprostol is used with the abortion drug RU-486. Last year, Americans filled 365,000 prescriptions of misoprostol. A dose sufficient to cause an abortion costs less than $2. It was effective 80% to 90% of the time, if administered by a doctor, slightly lower than its effectiveness in combination with RU-486. Women taking it on their own risk greater rates of failure and higher side effects, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fever and chills. Dr. Jerry Edwards, an abortion provider in Little Rock, Ark. said: "Rich women will fly to California; poor women will use Cytotec." In Brazil, where abortion is banned except in rare circumstances, misoprostol is the method of choice for 90% of abortions. Compared with illegal abortions using other methods, the rate of infection with misoprostol was 12 times lower, but among babies born with certain birth defects, a high percentage of the mothers used misoprostol. Researchers still need to learn more about what happens when the drug doesn't work. Currently, if women fail to terminate a pregnancy using RU-486 and misoprostol, they still have a surgical abortion. But if abortion were illegal, many of these women might carry to term. Data suggest it causes birth defects, including facial paralysis and limb defects. In Brazil, if women have problems with the drug, they go to the hospital to be treated for miscarriage. If women in the US start using misoprostol for abortions, someone going through a miscarriage is going to be looked at suspiciously. rw

U.S.: Congress Debates Legislation to Prevent Child Marriage

In July the Human Rights Commission held a hearing on child marriage where Melanne Verveer, the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues urged Congress to pass the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act (H.R. 2103 S. 987).

If passed, the State Department would be required to come up with a multi-year strategy to prevent child marriage and promote the empowerment of young girls who are at risk of child marriage.

Child marriage is a recognized violation of human rights, an average of 25,000 girls a day become child brides, and unless something is done to change this trend within the next 10 years, over 100 million girls in the developing world will become child brides.

Child marriage is a concern in 64 of the 182 countries that were surveyed. It is most common in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. These girls are often prevented from continuing their education and frequently become pregnant before they are physically capable of having a safe pregnancy. Child brides also face a significantly greater risk of domestic violence and HIV infection. Because of their unequal ages and social status, child brides are frequently unable to negotiate with their husbands about sex, contraception, and birth spacing. They often encounter difficulties in finding employment outside the home because schooling is interrupted.

The children of child brides are also victims. Their mothers often die early, or suffer life- threatening illnesses, due to pregnancy-related causes. Children born to child brides also have higher rates of low birth weights, infant mortality, and premature birth than those of children born to older mothers.

The Population Institute has sent letters to both the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging them to take action on the legislation. rw

Canada: Planned Parenthood Gets Silent Treatment From Ottawa

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a zero tolerance policy on abortion and has blocked support for safe abortions by withholding funding of a $18 million grant to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Abortion is legal in Canada

"We submitted an application for a three-year funding renewal to CIDA . . . in June, 2009," said Paul Bell of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in London. "It is unusual not to have heard anything about the proposal at this stage, 11 months after it was submitted."

Up until now, Canada has supplied a significant part of Planned Parenthood's $120 million annual budget.

Another maternal health agency, Marie Stopes International, has already fallen under the abortion ban - and received only funding on the agency avoiding any connection with abortion.

“The decision is a real missed opportunity to make an impact on the 13 per cent of maternal deaths caused by unsafe abortions globally," said the group's CEO Dana Hovig in a statement. “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health and (that) includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortions."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband are also upset about Canada's abortion stance. The Canadian government won't fund abortion, but Harper says it will put money into programs for safe pregnancy and childbirth, as well as family planning.

However, Harper has not backed a plan to ask world leaders to endorse a more than $30 billion global fund estimated to save the lives of up to 12 million women, children and newborns, nor has Canada supported the pre-summit Women Deliver conference in Washington, which will be attended by senior officials and politicians from around the world, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

U.K.: Funding Contraception Saves Lives and Money, Leading Experts Report

A leading international health organization and the UNFPA released a report about the impact of expanded access to contraception. The Guttmacher Institute says meeting the world's needs for modern birth control would reduce maternal deaths by 70%.

Family planning would eliminate two-thirds of unintended pregnancies and three-quarters of unsafe abortions.

Spending on contraception would ultimately reduce other health costs, saving an estimated $5.1 billion annually.

Canadian PM Harper has remained non-committal about whether contraception fits into its new mother-and- child health initiative. The Conservatives have shied away from abortion services being one of the areas they would support through international aid, but have also not conclusively said they would also fund family planning.

On Thursday, representatives from a number of high- profile health groups, urged the Tories at least to include family planning as part of their maternal-and child-health initiative.

While the organizations agreed access to safe abortions was part of maternal health, they did not insist the government also commit to support them.

Susan Cohen, of the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, said other countries would have to be lobbied to pick up Canada's slack on targeting unsafe abortions.

She noted that half of all abortions performed in the world are unsafe, and contraception could reduce them to 5 million from 20 million.

No Conservative politician was scheduled to officially receive the report or meet with the groups.

The whole issue of what constitutes reproductive health caused a rift in the Liberal caucus. Several MPs either missed or voted against a Liberal motion supporting "the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options, including contraception," causing the party to lose the vote.

Some pro-life MPs felt uncomfortable with the wording because they felt it might encompass abortion services. rw

Nepal Clinic is a Life-Saver for Women

In Nepal an internationally funded rural clinic provides family planning, women's health care and the sterilization procedure that ensures women would not endure another debilitating birth.

For Nepal's impoverished village women, with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates and no access to birth control, it was a life-saving operation.

The clinic is one of many reproductive health projects worldwide to prevent maternal mortality, reduce poverty, prevent HIV and AIDS and extend the lifespan of women. Many are funded by international donors like Canada.

The Harper government (Canada) announced it would make maternal mortality a priority at the upcoming G8 and G20 meetings that it will chair in Huntsville, Ont., and Toronto.

But its announcement - later reversed - that it would not support family planning through foreign aid "in any way, shape or form" alarmed groups grappling with the dangers of motherhood, and preventing HIV and AIDS. It highlights the importance that wealthy nations' decisions have for women in countries where there is too little to go around the family table.

Ottawa is a major supporter of the UN Population Fund, pledging $18.6 million (U.S.) in the past year.

If Ottawa had cut its funding, it would have run counter to U.S. President Obama's restoration of U.S. aid to the agency. One of Obama's first acts was to sign legislation for a $50 million (U.S.) contribution to UNFPA. Statistics show donations are badly needed.

An estimated 200 million women worldwide want to delay or avoid pregnancy, but aren't using safe and effective family planning.

About 350 million cannot obtain the contraceptive method that is common in their country. The lives of 150,000 women a year could be saved with better access to family planning.

The UN estimates it would take $1.2 billion a year to meet the world's need for contraceptives. Current UN assistance is $550 million.

Unmet need, inadequate supplies and increasing demand pose challenges to development in many countries. rw

Five American Luminaries Urge Increased U.S. Family Planning Assistance From USAID

Five former directors of the US Agency for Population and Reproductive Health Program have issued a call for renewal of U.S. commitment to international family planning and calls for upping U.S. family planning assistance from $425 million annually under Bush to $1.2 billion in 2010, rising to $1.5 billion annually by 2014.

One dollar invested in family planning is likely to save four dollars in other development areas. The report also hopes USAID will increase the number of countries where it lends its expertise. The report also calls for reversing the Global Gag Rule - which Obama has done - and for renewed American contributions to the IPPF and UNFPA.

In the 1970s, about 680 million women of reproductive age lived in developing countries where USAID had programs.

Today, this figure has more than doubled, and an estimated 201 million women have an unmet need for family planning. Around 55% percent of these women live in Asia, Pakistan, Philippines, Nepal and northern India. According only about 18% of African women are using modern contraceptives. rw

Politics-US: Congress Clears More Funds for Both War and Relief

The U.S. Congress approved a 560- billion-dollar 2008 appropriation that includes 70 billion dollars more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and increases in development, refugee, and disaster assistance.

The bill, which President Bush is expected to sign later this week, provides for a nearly 50% increase to 4.66 billion dollars in fighting diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, that particularly afflict developing countries.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, will get a record 845 million dollars, 120 million dollars more than last year's appropriation rw

World Bank Faces Doubt From Donors

For decades, the World Bank has financed more than $10 billion a year for aid for the poorest countries.

But continuing that aid is a major hurdle. Wealthy countries are balking because of their budget problems and questions after turmoil over the bank's relevance, priorities and its effectiveness.

Not least among the difficulties in raising an initial $39 billion over the next three years is the atmosphere left by Paul D. Wolfowitz, who, as bank president, tangled with colleagues at the bank around the world. German officials warned that they would have trouble financing the bank's aid for poor countries if he stayed on. Mr. Wolfowitz is now gone.

Japan is threatening to cut aid because of its budget difficulties. European countries say they are looking at other ways to give money and resent that the US has slipped in its share of the burden to just under 14%.

Part of the reason is that the value of the US dollar has declined. European resentments continue. The US has fallen behind by $375 million.

The bank's aid is channeled through the I.D.A. in the form of grants and interest-free loans, payable over as much as 40 years. About half are in Africa.

These days, wealthier nations have preferred to channel aid directly through their development agencies.

Donors prefer to earmark funds for specific purposes. It is easier to build political support at home for specific causes, especially when the World Bank has been discredited in Europe.

I.D.A. now accounts for about 8% of the aid from rich to poor countries. Trying to get contributions for a general fund like I.D.A. is getting harder and harder.

Another factor is to raise more money than in the past just to keep even. The bank has relied on income from poor countries' payments on past loans. Now those repayments are no longer available. President Bush and Tony Blair led an effort to cancel the debts of scores of poor countries. With that effort, the bank will forfeit an estimated $12 billion over the next three years.

Europe is interested in making climate the centerpiece of the next I.D.A. programs, but African countries have begun to warn that urgent needs, like health, are in danger of being overlooked.

The donor countries are still not ready to come up with large amounts of money.

But European distrust of the bank is not as high as it was earlier this year. It is waiting for a clear and compelling strategy. rw

Poor Teens Lack Access to Emergency Contraception

Low-income communities have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the U.S., yet researchers from Boston Medical Center found that pharmacists in poorer areas were more often misinformed about the law and mistakenly were denying 17-year-old girls access to Plan-B. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Plan B, or levonorgestrel, prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the wall of the uterus, if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. The drug, unlike RU-486, cannot be used to terminate a pregnancy.

In 2006, Plan B became available for purchase by adults in the U.S. without a prescription. In 2009, the age at which Plan B could be dispensed without a prescription was lowered to age 17.

"There is a lot of misinformation about emergency contraception," said senior auther Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center. Box labels on the contraception -- as well as the advertising -- may not be clear, and may be contributing to the problem.

In the study, graduate assistants posed as 17-year-old adolescents and called over 900 pharmacies throughout the U.S. to see if pharmacists would dispense the morning-after pill to teens. 19% of all pharmacists and 23.7% of pharmacists in low-income neighborhoods, said they could not obtain the pill under any circumstance.

Given the controversy surrounding the drug, and the changes in the rules and guidelines surrounding access, it's "not really surprising that it permeates everywhere," Wilkinson said.

Whatever the reason for the misinformation, whether it's a problem with staff education in the pharmacies, high turnover, the relative rarity of teens asking for the drug, she said, "at the end of the day, it puts adolescents in poor neighborhoods at a disadvantage," she said.

Another problem is that a 17-year-old may be asked to prove she is 17 and she may not have a license since she isn't driving.

Susan Wood, director of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health said emergency contraceptives should be compared to and accessible as condoms, tampons and pregnancy tests.

Even though the maker of Plan B received approval from the FDA to sell Plan B over the counter, which would make it available to all consumers regardless of age andsafety studies that show that women of all ages can take the drug safely and effectively, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defied the FDA and prevented the drug from becoming available for sale over the counter in December.

U.S.: Health Insurance: Obama Protects Birth Control Access for Women

Despite the fact that the Catholic organization USCCB lobbied to obtain exemptions from providing contraception in religious-affiliated employer health plans, the Obama administration announced today it will keep in place a proposed rule that says birth control is an essential service, and employer health insurance plans must cover birth control without a copay. This will ensure effective birth control is available for millions of women.

The USCCB has also wanted to continue receive taxpayer funds to treat victims of human trafficking, but refused to use the money to provide or refer for contraceptive or abortion services - even though these are the kinds of services that many victims of human trafficking need. But the USCCB lost its case with the Obama adminstration's decision today not to renew its contract with USCCB for the trafficking program.

U.S.: The War on Contraception Gets Mainstream Attention

Podcast: Nancy Cohen explains how sex is polarizing Americans politically. The question of contraception comes up during the Republican debate, which sets the mainstream media ablaze on a subject we've been hammering for years.

To the 2012 Candidates for Office: Women Are Watching

"The state has a right to [ban contraception], I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that." .. Rick Santorum

"Mitt Romney is pro-life and... supportive of efforts to ensure recognition that life begins at conception." .. Romney spokespersons

Candidates for office need to know that women (and men) like you and me are paying attention to what's happening concerning women's health and rights at the state and local level. Candidates are hoping they can say whatever it takes to get the Republication nomination for president and get away with it. They're hoping that because they're making outrageous statements in small gatherings designed to reach their own supporters, that we won't know.

I'm watching. So are hundreds of thousands of others. Our Women are Watching campaign is our best bet to stand up against anti-choice, anti-women's health candidates, and it takes all of us, working together.

There is a full slate of presidential candidates vowing to prevent Planned Parenthood health centers from providing health care to the millions of women who rely on them. They are pandering to an extreme base that is determined to roll back the clock on women's right to make their own medical decisions.

They're counting on the media to ignore their most dangerous policies as just campaign rhetoric. They are hoping that you are so exhausted by the constant attacks on Planned Parenthood and women's health that you just give up.

It's so important to keep tuning in, keep speaking out, keep fighting back. Start by signing the Women are Watching letter to all the 2012 candidates (click on the link in the red arrows or headline). Tell lawmakers and candidates for office that we will not sit quietly by while they attack our health and our rights.

The majority of voters are women, and no politician in the country can win without our support.

U.S.: States Enact Record Number of Abortion Restrictions in 2011

Legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions (not bills or laws - there are multiple provisions in a bill) in the 50 states of the U.S., up from the 950 introduced in 2010. 135 of these provisions had been enacted in 36 states, up from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.

68% of these provisions restrict access to abortion services. Last year only 26% of new provisions restricted abortion.

In 2011 voters in Mississippi rejected the ballot initiative that would have legally defined a human embryo as a person "from the moment of fertilization," setting the stage to ban all abortions and, potentially, most hormonal contraceptive methods in the state. Five states (AL, ID, IN, KS and OK) enacted provisions to ban abortion at or beyond 20 weeks' gestation, based on the claim that a fetus can feel pain at that point. These same five states plus Nebraska have adopted a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.

A South Dakota law would have required a woman to obtain pre-abortion counseling in person at the abortion facility at least 72 hours prior to the procedure; and it would have required her to visit a state-approved crisis pregnancy center during that time. The federal district court enjoined the law and it is not in effect. Texas now requires that women who live less than 100 miles from an abortion provider obtain counseling in person at the facility at least 24 hours in advance. North Carolina now requires counseling at least 24 hours prior to the procedure. A total of 26 states now mandate that a woman seeking an abortion must wait a prescribed period of time between the counseling and the procedure.

Five states adopted provisions mandating that a woman obtain an ultrasound prior to having an abortion, but two, in North Carolina and Texas, were immediately enjoined by federal district courts. Both of these restrictions would have required the provider to show and describe the image to the woman. However, in AZ, FL and KS, provisions are in effect which would require the abortion provider to offer the woman the opportunity to view the image or listen to a verbal description of it. Six states now mandate the performance of an ultrasound prior to an abortion.

Six states now limit abortion coverage in private insurance plans, including newly added Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah.

16 states have provisions restricting abortion coverage available through state insurance exchanges as part of the implementation of health care reform.

Four states enacted provisions directing the state department of health to issue regulations governing facilities and physicians' offices that provide abortion services. Supporters of the measures made it clear that the goal was to set standards that would be difficult, if not impossible, for abortion providers to meet. Enforcement of the proposed Kansas regulations has been enjoined by a state court.

Seven states (AZ, KS, NE, ND, OK, SD and TN) adopted provisions requiring that the physician prescribing the medication for a medication abortion be in the same room as the patient (disallowing telemedicine).

Family planning services escaped major reductions in nine (CO, CT, DE, IL, KS, MA, ME, NY and PA) of the states where the budget has a specific line-item for family planning. However FL, GA, MI, MN, WA and WI, family planning programs sustained deep cuts, although generally in line with decreases adopted for other health programs. Montana eliminated the family planning line item, and New Hampshire and Texas cut funding by 57% and 66%, respectively.

Indiana, Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina Texas and Wisconsin, meanwhile, moved to disqualify or otherwise bar certain types of providers from the receipt of family planning funds. New Hampshire decided not to renew its contract through which the Planned Parenthood affiliate in the state received Title X funds.

On the other hand, Maryland, Washington and Ohio took steps to expand Medicaid eligibility for family planning. With the approval of these two programs, 24 states have expanded eligibility for family planning under Medicaid based solely on income; seven have utilized the new authority under health care reform.

Regarding sex education, Mississippi adopted provisions that make it more difficult for a school district to include subjects other than abstinence, such as contraception, in order to offer a more comprehensive curriculum. North Dakota enacted an new requirement that mandates that the health education provided in the state include information on the benefits of abstinence "until and within marriage." Including North Dakota, 37 states now mandate abstinence education.

U.S.: 2011: the Year of the Abortion Restrictions

Very little related to health has made it through our polarized Congress after the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. An exception is reproductive health, and area where a lot did happen: States passed 83 laws restricting access to abortion, nearly four times the 23 laws passed in 2010. The 2010 elections brought in a bunch of Republican legislators and governors, resulting in an increase, from 10 to 15, in the number of states in which both the governor and the legislature oppose abortion rights.

Five states banned all abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. Seven now require an ultrasound, or the offer of one, prior to the procedure. Eight will no longer allow private insurance plans to cover the procedure. A few states are trying bar abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood, from receiving government funds, even for the non-abortion services they provide.

A small minority of abortions happen after 20 weeks, meaning that a ban on such procedures won't touch most patients. Abortion rights supporters question whether a major legal fight over a late-term abortion law affecting relatively few women is their best strategy.

But restrictions like those that restrict private insurance coverage of the procedure, could stand to reshape what access to abortion looks like. 87% of providers currently do pay for the procedure (this number is disputed by anti-abortion groups), a Kaiser Family Foundation study from 2002 shows.

Americans United for Life have written up draft legislation on how to limit insurance coverage and now eight states (3 more than last year) bar any private insurance plan from covering abortion and five more will limit such coverage on the exchanges, the new health insurance marketplace.

U.S.: Texas May Cut Entire Health Program to Spite Planned Parenthood, Leaving 130,000 Poor Women Without Care

Texas has drastically reduced the state's family planning funding from $111 million to just $37 million, and its Republican lawmakers have constructed a "tiered priority system" that ensured Planned Parenthood clinics would be the last to receive any of the remaining Title X federal funding. Texas has a state program: the state Women's Health Program (WHP), a Medicaid-funded program created in 2007, that "provides family planning and primary care to low-income, uninsured women, and it served nearly 125,000 people in 2010 alone."

GOP lawmakers had attempted to insert language into a new Medicaid measure that bans any family planning clinic that is even "affiliated" with an abortion provider from receiving WHP funds. Even though Planned Parenthood "corporately separated its abortion services from its family planning services in 2005," the fact that these (strictly family planning) clinics are “affiliated" with Planned Parenthood would disqualify them and the state's GOP lawmakers have asked the Department of Health and Human Services to let the state exclude the clinics accordingly.

The Department of Health and Human Services has said that, doing so “would violate the Social Security Act" which guarantees that a Medicaid patient can obtain health services from any qualified agency. But instead of accepting the decision, health advocates say Republicans may cancel the WHP program entirely out of spite, leaving at least 130,000 low-income Texas women without services, according to Fran Hagerty, of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas.

Gov. Rick Perry said Texas is “committed to protecting life in Texas, and state law prohibits giving state dollars to abortion providers and affiliates — a fact the Obama Administration ignores."

Major hospitals like the University of Texas Medical Branch and Parkland in Dallas would be able to maintain some semblance of family planning services, “but nothing like what we have now." Community clinics would have to dramatically reduce services, lay off employees or shut down completely if the WHP program is shut down.

The WHP program is set to expire on December 31. The HHS decision extends WHP for three more months, but Republicans are not accepting HHS's ruling on the matter. The Texas Humans and Health Services Commission, which requested the waiver, said HHS's decision is “inconsistent with federal law that gives states the authority to establish qualifications for Medicaid providers."

State Sen. Robert Deuell (R) said “The problem could be solved tomorrow if Planned Parenthood just renounces abortions and just does family planning and comprehensive care, which they're capable of," he said. “Then we could provide a lot of family planning and there wouldn't be abortions and this problem would go away."

Anna Merlen of the Dallas Observer notes, the program has “served 235,000 women so far and saved the state more than $37.6 million during its first two years by helping women avoid otherwise costly unplanned pregnancies." Currently, 28% of Texas women are uninsured, and without these clinics to provide necessary health care, the health care access problem for women is only going to get worse.

U.S.: Centers Stop Dispensing Birth Control; Planned Parenthood Loses Contract

Two weeks ago, the all-Republican Executive Council of New Hampshire voted 3-2 against a new contract that would have provided Planned Parenthood of Northern New England $1.8 million in state and federal money for the two years starting this month.

The six Planned Parenthood centers in New Hampshire stopped dispensing contraception last week, their retail pharmacy license contingent on having a state contract.

Executive Councilor Dan St. Hilaire of Concord, who cast one of the three votes in opposition, said the contract should go to an organization that does not perform abortions. The councilors approved 10 other contracts for family planning services.

The contract with Planned Parenthood, which accounts for about 20% of its annual New Hampshire budget, would have paid for education, distributing contraception, and the testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections.

The organization's abortion practice is paid for by private donations, president and CEO Steve Trombley, said, with audits ensuring no public money is used.

Planned Parenthood provides contraception, breast exams, screenings for cervical cancer, and tests for sexually transmitted infections, treating 52% of patients whose care is subsidized by the New Hampshire state family planning program. 70% of its patients, 150% below the federal poverty line,pay little or nothing for birth control pills, and 70% of the center's patients lack private health insurance.

One woman said she would like to have a child but cannot afford it, and she worries there will be a public cost if contraception is inaccessible to low-income women. "If they can't afford to have a baby, then we'll be paying for them in the long run," she said.

Anne Hildreth, a practitioner working for Planned Parenthood, said her goal is to help prevent unwanted pregnancies. She questioned the rationale of limiting access to contraception in an effort to prevent abortions. "It's crazy to not give women birth control if you want to stop women from having abortions," she said.

Executive councilor Raymond Wieczorek of Manchester does not believe the state should subsidize contraception. "If they want to have a good time, why not let them pay for it?" he said.

US Kansas: Why Would At-Risk Teens Need to Know About Condoms?

Kansas is in the midst of culture wars. Recently it was the battle over 'the condom on the cucumber.'

More important, the Johnson County Commission turned down federal aid for a program aimed at preventing teen pregnancy and reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Last year Kansans for Life and others objected to a federal grant proposal because the money would have been funneled through Planned Parenthood. Some of the commissioners objected because they feared political repercussions for doing the right thing. Which would have been to do whatever it took to help teenage girls avoid getting pregnant.

U.S.: No-Cost Birth Control: the Facebook Application

Although 98% of American women use birth control sometime in their life, one in three of these women is challenged to be able to use prescription birth control because it costs too much. According to Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, "young adults ages 18-24 have the highest rate of unintended pregnancy in the United States -- and nearly one-third of female teenagers become pregnant before reaching the age of 20. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended."

The Guttmacher Institute refines these statistics to "Sixty-three percent of reproductive-age women who practice contraception use nonpermanent methods, including hormonal methods (such as the pill, patch, implant, injectable and vaginal ring), the IUD and condoms. The remaining women rely on female or male sterilization." Affordable non- permanent prescription birth control, has too often been difficult for too many to obtain. But those days may end soon. There is a provision in Obama's new health care law that would allow contraception to be considered preventative care. Insurance plans would then have to cover contraception without a copay.

Keenan says "NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation has launched a campaign called BC4ME (Birth Control for Me) to make sure the government follows through on the health-care law's promise to improve women's access to vital health services. We expect the federal government to decide this summer whether to include no-cost birth control in the law's implementation."

And the best news yet!! BC4ME launched a Facebook application to let users know how much they themselves, or any other women in their lives can save by not having to spend on out-of-pocket costs of birth control. According to Keenan" The application is fun", and lets users see how much money can be saved when this provision of the Obama health care plan is passed. Already, scores of people have calculated the personal impact that no-cost birth control would have on them, and have shared testimonials describing the financial sacrifices they make to be able to continue using prescription birth control.

Unfortunately, for every testimony of financial sacrifice there is testimony from a women who sacrifices even using birth control, because it is just too expensive for her.

Of course, no-cost birth control could never come just that easily. Anti-contraception groups are fighting hard to prevent this policy change. To them birth control is a "life-style choice" not health care. That description flies in the face of recommendations made by The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Public Health Association, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine, who all refer to family planning (using birth control) as recommended preventive care.

Check out the Facebook application and see for yourself! http://www.facebook.com/naralprochoiceamerica? sk=app_190733170965153 lvp

An Unexpected 2012 Voting Issue: Public Strongly Supports Family Planning, New Poll Shows Americans Have Reached a Consensus on Contraceptives, So Why the Controversies?

Editor's note: A couple of press releases from NFPRHA are combined here in this synopsis

Title X, of the Public Health Service Act, the national family planning program, which funds such care for low‐income people, was recently threatened in a battle in Congress over the 2011 federal budget. Other battles on women's access to affordable family planning loom at the state and federal levels.

June 7 is the anniversary of the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court decision that legalized contraceptive use by married couples. For NFPRHA the anniversary marks the beginning of a series of activities to draw attention to the need for family planning services to be fully covered in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid as well as full funding for Title X (Ten), the National Family Planning Program.

Nearly all Americans have embraced family planning as an essential part of their lives and thought consensus on the issue had been reached decades earlier.

A May telephone poll conducted by Lake Research Partners found that support for family planning in America crosses all demographic and political lines and outweighs budget‐cutting arguments by a two‐to‐one margin. 84% of Americans view family planning, including contraception, as important to basic preventive health care services, the survey concluded. 67% feel that way strongly, and 40% said they would be less likely to support elected officials who vote to defund family planning. 60% agreed that everyone has a right to safe, affordable family planning services, while only 31% agree that budget concerns should require cuts in funding for family planning.

From the survey results, one could conclude that family planning is a core American value, and that voters would be willing to punish politicians who try to cut public funding for it.

Other facts:

* 98% of American women have used birth control at some point in their lives.

* 93% of voters believe all couples should have access to birth control.

* 6 in 10 women who get health care from a publicly funded family planning center consider it their regular source of health care.

* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cited family planning as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th Century.

Background on the Griswold v Connecticut case is provided at http://www.nfprha.org/images/insert/Griswold_OnePager_June_2011.pdf .. In summary:

In 1961, the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut opened its doors, but less than two weeks later Executive Director Estelle Griswold and Medical Director Dr. C. Lee Buxton were arrested for violating an 1879 law that made it illegal to use contraceptives or to provide contraceptives or contraceptive information. They were convicted and then appealed their conviction.

In a 7-2 decision issued on June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court, ruling that the law violated the right to marital privacy.

The Griswold decision, while only securing a right to use contraception for married couples, laid the groundwork for many decisions that upheld the right to privacy and offered protection from government intrusion on individuals' reproductive and sexual health decisions. In 1972, the Court extended the principles of Griswold to unmarried couples. The Court wrote, "f the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." The following year, in Roe v. Wade, the Court relied on the privacy right identified in Griswold to conclude that the Fourteenth Amendment is "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

Title X supported more than 4,500 health centers nationwide that helped a record 5.2 million people in the recession year of 2009, but its $300 million budget met less than a third of the need, notes Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.

"Using contraception is not controversial in American homes. Women spend about 5 years either being pregnant or trying to get pregnant and about 30 years trying not to get pregnant." she said.

Former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder (D‐CO) said "If you think the $300 million that goes to family planning is going to balance the budget, I have a bridge I want to sell you."

Obstetrician Dr. Mark Hathaway of the Washington Hospital Center noted that half of all pregnancies are unintended. "That's where the Title X program has been so successful, in helping people avoid unintended pregnancies."

In the end, the Final Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 spending bill (H.R. 1473) - signed into law on April 15, 2011 - cut funding for Title X by $18.1 million.

Some Members of Congress are also trying to cut Medicaid - a critical funding source for family planning and other health care for low-income and poor individuals - and undermine the Affordable Care Act. In addition some states are moving to refuse Title X funds, prohibit certain types of providers from receiving state and/or federal funds, and cut Medicaid enrollees and benefits, all of which would make it harder for low-income women to get birth control.

The polling results, memo and an audio briefing by the above spokespeople along with background information on the anniversary of Griswold v Connecticut decision, Title X including state‐by‐state data and basic facts on family planning services are available at www.NFPRHA.org.

Tell Congress and your state officials they are getting it wrong! Tell them to stop attacking family planning services and providers, and to start working to strengthen and protect our national family planning program - Title X - and ensure access to contraceptives under Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

To reach your Members of Congress, call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. You can access a directory of state legislative websites through the National Conference of State Legislatures.

U.S.: Planned Parenthood Under Fire

Social conservatives in Congress failed to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood last month, and now Legislators in several states are trying it.

Federal law prohibits federal funding of abortions. Planned Parenthood gets government contracts and grants to provide family planning and health services. It serves about 3 million patients annually.

President Carol Tobias of the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion, says that taxpayer dollars that go to Planned Parenthood don't fund abortions directly, but the money is building their infrastructure and helping to attract clients.

About a third of Planned Parenthood's $1.1 billion a year budget is from government funding.

Attempts in state capitals to curtail the organization's funding are unprecedented says Roger Evans, Planned Parenthood's litigation director. "This is really ... an effort by the states to punish Planned Parenthood because of what we do with our private funds."

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels recently signed legislation barring any entity that performs abortions from contracting with Medicaid to provide health and preventive care. The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood sued; a court hearing is set for June 6.

Federal law does not allow states to prevent beneficiaries from getting other care from providers that offer abortions, according to The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is is reviewing Indiana's law and other state proposals to withhold funds from abortion providers. Recent legislative action:

Tennessee, Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas, and North Carolina are all considering or have passed bills to restrict funding to entities, or Planned Parenthood specifically, that provide abortions.

Birth Control

Urge your congress person to support the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act.

For 20 years, drug companies have made it possible for college health clinics and safety-net providers to purchase birth control at low prices. This fall, the birth control that previously cost them $5-10 for a monthly supply now cost $40-50. Due to a provision included in the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), as of January 1, 2007, every college and university health center and safety-net providers were unintentionally cut off from accessing low-cost birth control. Skyrocketing prices are putting birth control out of reach for women to prevent unintended pregnancy.

The Prevention Through Affordable Access Act would allow drug manufacturers to offer deeply discounted prices to safety net health care providers.

Over half the pregnancies in the US are unintended. rw

US Minnesota;: Price Spike Could Take Low-income Users Off the Pill; Family Planning Advocates Warn That a Huge Jump in Price Could Prevent Poor Women From Using Birth Control

A price increase for birth control pills provided at many clinics has advocates calling for action to head off a crisis they say could affect 140,000 low-income women in Minnesota.

Health care providers are certain clients are not filling their birth control prescriptions due to costs.

Expected price spikes for a clinic patient's monthly supply of a popular oral contraceptive increased from $3.25 to $35 or more.

More than 100 publicly funded clinics in Minnesota were notified that they could no longer receive birth control pills at subsidized rates unless they could qualify for a federal program. Hopefully, a remedy can be found.

The price increase is a result of Congress' 2005 Deficit Reduction Act, which eliminates many clinics' eligibility for subsidized contraceptives. The clinics were dropped several years ago from Minnesota's multi-state drug purchasing program, which provides bulk discounts to public health providers. State legislation will be considered next year to restore the clinics to that program. rw

State Court Rules Against Catholic Church on Insurance

New York State's highest court ruled that religious organizations must require most employee health insurance policies to cover contraception.

The decision left intact the Women's Health and Wellness Act of 2002, which requires company health insurance policies that provide coverage for prescription drugs to include "coverage for the cost of contraceptive drugs or devices."

It had been challenged by a group including eight Catholic and two Baptist organizations.

The New York State Catholic Conference, said it would consider appealing the ruling to the US Supreme Court saying that it is about religious liberty. In New York, the Insurance Department was joined by the other groups in defending the insurance regulation's terms.

The court's decision said that legislators had intended the 2002 law to "advance both women's health and the equal treatment of men and women." In addition, the New York law requires employee insurance to cover osteoporosis exams and screenings for breast and cervical cancer.

Tthe issues centered on an exemption for "religious employers," who are not required to provide coverage for contraception. But the exemption does not apply to church schools, hospitals or organizations that employ and serve people from diverse religious backgrounds. rw

U.S.: Sen. Clinton Charges GOP War on Contraception

Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has sought a political middle ground on abortion, told supporters the GOP is trying to cut back women's access to birth control.

Clinton, D-N.Y., charged that the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress are whittling away at contraception options, particularly for women who rely on government-funded programs.

The senator cited statistics that half of all unwanted pregnancies end in abortions.

Republicans accused Clinton of seeking to enlarge federal programs.

Clinton's campaign letter asks supporters to sign a petition protesting curbs on family planning services. Clinton joined Sen. Harry Reid, the leader of the Senate Democrats, to protest a Republican health insurance bill on similar grounds.

Clinton and Reid said the bill allowing small businesses to pool together across state lines would indirectly reduce access to contraception and increase the number of abortions.

The bill would waive individual state coverage requirements for such health care plans. Democrats fear companies will drop contraception coverage if the bill becomes law. rw

US Montana: Blue Cross Won't Challenge Mandated Contraceptive Coverage

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana said it is working through the opinion issued by Attorney General Mike McGrath that will force prescription policies to include coverage for contraceptives.

Although any insurance companies could challenge McGrath's opinion and ask a court to overturn it, Blue Cross is considered the most influential, but Blue Cross does not plan to appeal.

If McGrath's opinion is not taken to the courts, opponents could still go the Legislature and ask lawmakers to modify it but Blue Cross plans to live with the decision although they get a lot of complaints from consumers who are having trouble paying their health insurance bills, and this adds to the overall cost.

The attorney general said Montana's "unisex" insurance law forbids any discrimination based on gender in insurance policies. Advocates have tried to get the Legislature to mandate birth control prescription drug coverage. Montana, like many states, requires insurance companies to cover a number of medical conditions.

The insurance industry says those mandates are driving up the cost of health insurance and people should be allowed to decide what they want covered.

Blue Cross said it has yet to determine when the contraceptive coverage mandate will become effective 24 other states require insurers to cover prescription contraceptives. rw

U.S.: Judge: Union Pacific Must Provide Contraceptive Coverage

Union Pacific Railroad discriminated against women by not providing coverage for contraceptives in its health care plan. Union Pacific's policy of excluding prescription contraceptives and related outpatient services is discriminatory because it treats womens needs to prevent pregnancy less favorably than other medical conditions. Union Pacific said the ruling will be appealed because the decision to exclude contraceptives was negotiated with the unions. Nonunion employees have had prescription contraceptive coverage for "some time." This is a victory for women; employers must realize that contraception is essential health care. Recent studies show that 88% of employer health plans provide coverage for prescription contraception, compared with 64% in 2001. Union Pacific Corp. operates Union Pacific Railroad which is the largest railroad in North America. rw

US Illinois: First Lady Launches Web Site for Contraceptive Insurance Coverage

A web site designed to help woman learn about contraceptive insurance coverage was launched Wednesday. Under a state law in Illinois, insurance providers that cover prescription drugs must also cover all FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices. The new Web site provides information about insurance companies' coverage and includes an online form where women can report it if their insurance company does not comply with state law. Seven popular contraceptives have become available through the state's prescription drug-import program, I-SaveRX, which helps individuals buy Canadian drugs. rw

More Women Opting Against Birth Control

Buried in the government's latest analysis of contraceptive use was that the number of women who had sex in the previous three months - but did not use birth control - rose from 5.2% in 1995 to 7.4% in 2002. That means 11% are at risk of unintended pregnancy. The increase is significant and that merits further study. Although unintended pregnancies can be welcome surprises, the danger from a public health and societal standpoint is that many of the women are financially or psychologically unprepared for parenthood. Half of all unintended pregnancies occur among the more than 95% of women who used contraception. That means the other half of unintended pregnancies came from the population not using birth control. The pill is the popular choice, followed by sterilization. Preliminary information found a slight increase in the birth rate in 2003, most notably in women older than 30. Because the number of uninsured has increased, these women might find the cost of contraceptives burdensome as since 2001, the number of uninsured Americans has risen by 4 million. It is unconscionable that women have a co-pay of $20 or $25 a month for contraceptives and men are getting off scot-free. Drug companies "have cut way back" on free samples. Many physicians put partial blame on federally funded abstinence-only education that prohibit discussion of contraceptives. Women don't want to use birth control because of the side effects and a lot of men refuse to use a condom. A growing number of women, especially teenagers, are using condoms with another form of contraception. This suggests they are concerned about preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. rw

U.S. Supreme Court Declines Religious Dispute over Contraceptives

The Supreme Court refused to disturb a ruling that forces California religious organizations to pay for workers' contraceptive health insurance. Some 20 of the 50 states require employers that have prescription drug benefit plans to cover birth control pills. Justices had been asked to review California's law, which exempts churches but not church-backed institutions such as hospitals and charity organizations. Catholic Charities challenged the law, on grounds that it could not be required to pay for something it viewed as sinful. The case turned on the group's constitutional right to exercise its religious beliefs without government interference. California's deputy attorney general said that Catholic Charities could get around the requirement by not offering insurance to employees. Catholic Charities does not qualify for an exemption because it offers such services as counseling, low-income housing and immigration services without preaching Catholic values. Also, the group employs people of many religious affiliations. rw

U.S.: Sex-Ed Initiative at Heart of House Bill Battle; Focus on Funding for Teen Program

The House bill that would fund the Department of Health and Human Services for fiscal 2012 has a clause that would slash Obama administration's TPP (Teen Pregnancy Prevention) program, now funded at $105 million, and divert half the money to abstinence education.

The Senate version of the bill maintains the new TPP Initiative program, which was created by the Obama administration and a Democrat-led Congress to give grants to organizations to replicate certain "comprehensive" sex-education programs that have been proven to impact teen pregnancy and to replace Bush-era abstinence-education grant programs.

TPP grantees must also conduct research on their programs.

Monica Rodriguez, president and chief executive of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) said the House bill is "problematic and hypocritical." Everyone in Congress is talking about deficit reduction and cost-saving measures, but then they “decimate" the TPP program, which supports programs that work, she said, and divert money to "failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs."

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) said abstinence programs are effective, citing a NAEA report published this year that lists 22 studies - half published since 2008 - that show that abstinence programs can reduce teen sex or affect teen behaviors. Also, federal data show “a dramatic drop" in teen sexual-activity rates since 1996 — the year abstinence-education funding was first expanded, she said.

It is unknown what will happen to the TPP program when the House and Senate bills are merged.

The Senate version - unlike the House draft - also maintains funding for family planning and other public health programs.

The deadline for a decision is Nov. 18, when Congress‘ temporary spending law expires.

U.S.: Teenage Pregnancies: Growing Pains

There had been a long, steady fall in U.S. teenage pregnancies, but now a troubling rise has occurred.

From 1991 to 2005 the teen births declined by 34%, according to the National Centre for Health Statistics. But from 2005 to 2007, it crept up 5%. Statistics are not yet available for 2008 and 2009.

Before the Pill, pre 1960, the rate was more than double what it is today. It is below its early-1990s bubble, but the new trend is worrisome.

There are several reasons given by various parties, but abstinence-only and lack of access are two of them.

In Texas, for example, public schools must emphasize abstinence, but although they can use other approaches, few choose to be more comprehensive - 94% of the districts took the abstinence-only approach. Those pamphlets and brochures that bothered to discuss contraceptives were often full of errors, or deliberately misleading. Teens were warned that premarital sex could lead to divorce, suicide, poverty and a disappointed God.

Texas has the third-highest rate of teenage births, after Mississippi and New Mexico. Dallas has the highest rate of repeat teenage births in the country, 28%, and several other Texas cities are in the top ten. Girls in the state under 18 must get parental consent for contraceptives, even if they already have a child.

Federal funding for one abstinence-only programme ended in June so many states and school districts have already abandoned it in favor of a more comprehensive approach. On the other hand, last month the Senate Finance Committee approved an amendment to its health-care bill restoring abstinence-only funds.

While Latina teenagers rates of sexual activity similar to other groups, they have a considerably higher birth rate. The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health says Latina teenagers are less likely to have health-care coverage for contraceptives, and are more likely to lack transport to the free clinics in their cities.

U.S.: Teenagers and Pregnancy

Contraceptive use by sexually active teens has declined by 10% since 2003, while their sexual activity has remained unchanged. This follows increased contraceptive use between 1991 and 2003, according to a new report from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

The authors suggest a link between the shift in use of contraception and abstinence-only sex education programs that deny young people information about sexually transmitted diseases, contraceptives and pregnancy. To the extent these programs even mention condoms, typically it is to disparage their effectiveness.

President Obama's budget plan would direct current funds now devoted to the abstinence-only programs, along with some additional money, to a new teenage pregnancy prevention initiative, with an emphasis on comprehensive sex education.

Hopefully this science-based effort to protect the health of young people and reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies should win support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle - and both sides of the abortion divide.

U.S.: Tell Congress to Support President Obama and Help Prevent Teen Pregnancy

Last week, President Obama took a courageous stand on behalf of America 's young people by publicly calling for the elimination of Bush-era abstinence-only programs. These programs were infamous for their use of scare-tactics, offensive stereotypes, and outright lies - and for the fact that over the last 10 years they wasted more than a $1 billion in taxpayer money.

Instead, the president is proposing funding for new, evidence-based interventions to combat teen pregnancy and teach young people healthy decision-making skills.

But the enemies of science have not conceded defeat. Right-wing extremists are flooding the offices of members of Congress with messages demanding that abstinence-only funding be restored. We need you to help make sure that does not happen.

Please take a moment and click above to send a message to your Senators and Representative urging them to support the President's effort to empower young people. Tell them not to give in to the extremists -no money for abstinence-only!

US South Carolina: How to End the War Over Sex Ed

Teaching kids about abstinence won't prevent teen pregnancies. But a county in South Carolina is finding success by doing both.

S. Carolina is the only state that mandates the hours that schools must devote to sexuality education. One district partnered with a local organization to implement a sex-education curriculum that runs through middle school, high school, and an after-school program for at-risk kids.

Congress will decide whether to eliminate $176 million in federal funding for abstinence-only programs. Advocates will debate the merits of abstinence-only efforts vs. more comprehensive programs that teach about birth control and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

What we need is the political will and community investment to educate kids about sexuality and healthy relationships in a responsible and honest way. It's crazy to spend more time teaching kids about decimals and fractions than about dating and sex.

In 2006 there were 41.9 births for every 1,000 U.S. teens - more than three times that of Canada. But over the past 15 years, teenagers have had less sex than previous generations, and have been more likely to use protection when they have had sex. Conservatives see this as a result of abstinence education. Liberals attribute it to greater use of birth control, better education and access to contraceptives.

In S Carolina birthrates in the state fell 27% from 1991 to 2006. But teen birthrates are almost 12 points above the national average. In 1988, South Carolina passed the Comprehensive Health Education Act, which requires sexuality education from elementary school through high school, including at least 12.5 hours of "reproductive health and pregnancy prevention education" during a student's high school years. It allows each school district to make its own decisions, but with federal funding limited to abstinence-only programs, local districts have a powerful incentive to restrict their sex-education curriculum.

Researchers working with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy have calculated that in 2004 alone, teen pregnancies cost U.S. taxpayers more than $9 billion in health care, foster care, public assistance and lost tax revenue. The cost for South Carolina taxpayers that year came to $156 million.

But $40,000 was raised to hire a recent Clemson University graduate to be the district's dedicated sex-education teacher.

At Starr-Iva Middle School, she teaches two courses - one on basic sexuality, the other on decision-making skills - to each class in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The program gives students information about STIs, pregnancy and contraception. But it also encourages them to delay sexual activity, works on building self-esteem and uses role-playing to teach them how to resist pressure from peers and partners.

No one quite knew how this highly religious community would react, but it has virtually no opposition. They can also look through her course materials and sit in on her classes.

The comprehensive sex-education model combines factual information about birth control and STIs with a strong message that kids should wait to have sex. Jordan's approach seems to be working. During her first three years, teen birthrates in the district stayed steady, but in 2007 that number dropped to four and then last year dropped again, to two.

School officials have been so pleased that they've talked about adding a sex-education requirement in 11th grade. There is growing evidence that comprehensive sexuality programs like the ones Jordan teaches can be more effective than abstinence-only curriculums at persuading teens to behave more responsibly.

The effective programs "have a very clear message that not having sex is the safest choice. They put emphasis on skill-building and role-playing, they teach how to use condoms, and they encourage young people not to have sex." rw

U.S.: Why Do Teen Birthrates Keep Rising?

Teen birthrates rates rose in the U.S. for the second consecutive year. The pro-abstinence camp considers the statistics evidence that their approach is essential. Others said that if you spend $1.5 billion to teach this to young people and then pass laws that limit their access to good information, contraception, emergency contraception and abortion, you shouldn't be surprised at the outcomes.

The evidence has been mounting for those who consider abstinence-only a failure. After a decade and 1.5 billion federal dollars spent promoting abstinence-only, a scientific study authorized by Congress reported no real difference in when program participants first had sex, or whether they had sex before marriage, or in their number of sexual partners.

But the numbers are compiled from birth certificate statistics; all they show is an increase in birth rates among young women. They don't tell the pregnancy rates, or whether or not the pregnancies were intended, or what information these women had ever received about contraception.

It takes a while for a trend to reverse itself, but there is evidence linking HIV education, change in teen sexual behaviors, and the declines in teen pregnancy between 1991 and 2004.

C. Everett Koop's promotion of HIV education during the years following the first reported cases of the virus in 1981 had an impact among teens: they reported a big upswing in condom use and fewer sexual partners. Then, HIV education dropped while abstinence-only programs came into vogue.

And voila. Now recent behavioral data from 2003-2007 suggests declines in teen condom and contraceptive behavior and little change in sexual activity. Those data are consistent with the shift to abstinence-only approaches.

Evidence suggests that sexuality education works. And the abstinence-only camp hasn't produced any compelling evidence to support the notion that keeping teens sexually ignorant will prevent them being sexually active. rw

U.S.: The Rise in Teen Moms

After dropping for 14 years, the birth rate among 15-to 19-year-olds went up in 2006 and, rose again in 2007. Ways to curb teen pregnancy have become a topic for debate.

President Obama and Congress have cut aid to sexual-abstinence programs and plan to do more.

There are no easy answers. Even the most effective programs only reduce risky sexual behavior among teens by about one-third. Teens may not take any type of sex education seriously if adults fight over it.

Communities need to send clear, consistent messages about appropriate sexual behavior. It is important that organizations avoid sending conflicting messages to young people.

What is needed is that all those concerned unite in dealing with the many factors causing teen pregnancy. These include poverty, drugs, fatherless homes, and domestic abuse. The yearly cost in public services for a teen mother is about $4,080.

America's sexualized culture - reflected by the teen births by Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears, or the film "Juno." Another influence is the role model they see in single women having or adopting babies. Four out of 10 births are now to unwed mothers. One overlooked issue is that the male in a "teen pregnancy" is usually more than 20 years old. Why aren't prosecutors going after these statutory rapists?

Parents need to find better ways to talk about sex and make better efforts to instill high values. One study found teen moms can earn more in later life and eventually obtain a high school education but that doesn't take into account the effects on children of being raised without a father.

An unconditional love for each teen, even with a pregnancy, will help them gain control and maturity - and help America reverse this trend. rw

Ensure Access to Birth Control--tell Congress to Pass the Abc Act

Recently the FDA approved a new, more effective emergency contraceptive called Ensure. Quick to react, the Family Research Council started a new campaign to "encourage" pharmacists to refuse to dispense the new drug. Not surprising since they are doing the same thing with all birth control. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-14th/NY) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) have introduced the Access to Birth Control Act (ABC Act--H.R. 5309/S. 3357) in the U.S. House and Senate.

This Act simply requires pharmacists to fill valid prescriptions for contraception and to dispense over-the-counter emergency contraception when asked, or to provide a referral to another store. Pharmacists do not have a right to interfere with a woman's private medical decisions, or to substitute their moral judgment for hers.

Click on the headline above to send a message to your Members of Congress: co-sponsor and support the passage of the Access to Birth Control Act.

Why Sustainability Activists Should Consider Florida's Population Stabilization the Greatest Opportunity of Their Lifetimes

When Florida reported that the Sunshine State had experienced population stabilization during the last year, it did not take long for a chorus of sustainability ignoramuses to bray that the sky was falling.

But to those concerned with how the United States and the international community are going to adopt sustainable economic models, Florida's situation offers the rarest of opportunities. If sustainability activists do not bravely and boisterously explain why Florida's population stabilization is the most wonderful moment in history, they can expect to see their cause suffer badly.

A New York Times report on the situation was peppered with so much pro-growth propaganda you get the sense the author is a shareholder in many Floridian development firms.

"Florida, in particular, was not built for emptying, ..."The end of double digit growth "...is, by all accounts, a life lived under capacity." Stanley Smith, a professor at the University of Florida blurts in the article that "You have a state that has been a leader in population growth for the last 100 years that suddenly has seen a substantial shift."

To Smith, a 0.3% decline of residents (after gaining 88% since 1980 and 3456% since 1900) is "sudden", "dramatic" and "substantial".

Florida's population stabilization represents an unforeseen opportunity for environmentalists, ecological economists, steady-state economists, small government advocates, land preservationists, wildlife protectors, and entrepreneurs of all sorts the chance to explain to Floridians and the rest of the world why population stabilization is the best thing that could happen to a state. It is important to understand the limits of the regenerative capacity of the state's renewable resources, and the implementation of a sustainable economic policy that efficiently keeps overall consumption within the state's natural carrying capacity without degrading Florida's environment any further. Hopefully as time moves on, the economy can be geared towards rehabilitating the damage already done to Florida's environment. rw

U.S.: New Rules Would Threaten Right to Contraceptives

Reproductive health advocates were outraged by reports that the administration plans to require recipients of federal health programs to hire people who object to abortion and many kinds of birth control.

The report said the draft change in rules would require hospitals, clinics, researchers, medical schools and state and local governments to sign "written certifications" of non-discrimination against such applicants. The proposal would define "abortion" as "any of the various procedures that results in the termination of the life of a human being between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation." rw

Anti-Birth Control Advocate Keroack is Gone!

Anti-birth control advocate Eric Keroack will no longer oversee the nation's family planning program! The day he took office, Planned Parenthood rallyed a groundswell of opposition to his appointment.

PPFA President Cecile Richards issued a statement: Keroack was unqualified to run the nation's family planning program. The Bush administration must replace Keroack with a legitimate, mainstream public health expert who supports family planning and access to birth control. rw

Church Bars Raped Women From Pill

Under church policy, sexually assaulted women who seek help at Catholic hospitals cannot be referred to centres that supply morning-after pills.

Another fertility centre has been told to move out by the Catholic buyers of the hospital where it is based. Catholic Health Australia, says direct referral of raped women to centres that offer the morning-after pill "should only occur if steps have been taken to exclude pregnancy".

Catholic spokesmen defended the policy as a logical and ethical extension of the church's opposition to the morning-after pill,. But Melbourne GP and medical broadcaster Sally Cockburn said she was "blown out of the water" when she read the policy. "They have no right to make us follow their point of view. The NSW Rape Crisis Centre, said it was standard practice for a raped woman to be offered the morning-after pill.

Catholic-controlled health organisations control more than 70 hospitals in Australia. Canberra's John James Hospital bought by a Catholic-controlled organisation had begun withdrawing services to the Canberra Fertility Centre, which was based on its premises.

Catholic organisations ran 21 public hospitals around the nation they would have to follow the ethics policy.

Health workers in Catholic hospitals "are not prevented from giving information" about abortion, the morning-after pill or any other treatment. Staff are not permitted to directly refer women to abortion services.

Bishop Anthony Fisher said the ban was a logical extension of the church's position on use of the morning-after pill. rw

US Missouri: Senator Proposes Banning Most Abortions

Sen. Crowell filed a bill Wednesday that would generally ban abortions in Missouri except to prevent a woman's death. Violation of the law would face a sentence of five to 15 years in prison. Last week, South Dakota voted to allow the procedure only to save a woman's life and the Gov. is inclined to sign the bill. Crowell hopes his measure reaches the U.S. Supreme Court. Crowell also filed to change the state constitution to prohibit abortion and said the Roe v. Wade decision was wrong, and urged lawmakers to join him to protect the sanctity of unborn life. Abortion supporters vowed to fight the bill. The Missouri Legislature has an anti-abortion majority and has enacted restrictions to the procedure over the years. Last year they passed a measure allowing parents to sue people who help their minor daughters get an abortion without their consent. It also requires doctors who perform abortions to have clinical privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortion takes place. rw

New Hope, New Dread; FDA, Safety and Politics Enmeshed

In an e-mail to FDA staff, Commissioner Lester Crawford said that, at 67, it was time to resign. Crawford's tenure was marked by controversy: The withdrawal of Vioxx and Bextra. The FDA told makers of two silicone-gel breast implants that they can market their products as soon as they answer remaining questions. Opponents said the companies haven't studied patients long enough to prove the devices are safe. Some members of Congress held up Crawford's confirmation because the FDA had not yet allowed Plan B emergency contraception to be sold over-the-counter. Opponents charged that politics trumped science. The head of the FDA's women's health office quit in protest. The Accountability Office called the FDA's Plan B decision-making process "unusual." After Crawford resigned, the Bush administration named Andrew von Eschenbach of the National Cancer Institute to be acting FDA commissioner. Skeptics questioned the potential conflicts of interest in von Eschenbach holding two jobs, so he went on a leave of absence from the cancer institute. rw

Possible Fed Cuts Could Shut Down Women Reproductive Health Services in Alaska

Cuts are proposed for the federal budget that will remove funds used for reproductive health care, and additional programs for low-income women.

With the U.S. House already voting to remove funding for things like cancer screenings and birth control from family planning programs like Planned Parenthood and others, the push is on for the Senate to follow course.

Some say this decision is a plain and simple a direct attack on low-income women's only chance for health care.

Upcoming votes on Capitol Hill could determine if family planning services will be eliminated in Alaska.

Clover Simon, the vice president of Planned Parenthood of Alaska said: "Primarily it's cancer screening, it's pelvic exams, breast screenings, birth control services." ... "Without that funding we would no longer be able to provide those services to women."

U.S.: New Jersey Gov. Eliminates Family Planning Funding From State Budget

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and the Democrat-controlled Legislature reached an agreement on a fiscal 2011 budget that includes a $7.5 million cut to family planning centers. If the budget is approved, 58 family planning centers will no longer receive state funding, which accounts for about 25% of their budgets.

State Senate President Stephen Sweeny (D) criticized the elimination of the family planning funding, noting that it would decrease the amount of federal money the state receives. New Jersey receives $9 for every $1 spent on family planning, according to Sweeny.

The issue "is not about abortion but about women's health," Sweeny said, "And the governor is going to sacrifice women's health and throw away $9 for every dollar. Sweeny said Democrats would try to pass a supplemental spending bill with the family planning funding. rw

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the California Special Session Budget

The California State Legislature started in January 2010 with an estimated $20 billion deficit. The governor's budget proposed elimination of California's - Family Planning Access Care and Treatment - if the federal government did not give $6.9 billion in relief. This "triggering" to eliminate Family PACT was a new threat to our ongoing efforts to protect access to family planning for California women.

PACT is the state's family planning program that provides breast and cervical cancer screenings, contraception, pregnancy and STD testing and treatment for nearly 1.7 million Californians every year. Planned Parenthood's advocacy mantra is "9 to 1" - for every $1 the state spends, the federal government adds $9 more.

Family PACT has saved California over $2 billion since its inception and has enabled us to meet the increased demand during these challenging economic times.

Fortunately California's revenues began a modest increase - primarily due to growth in the stock market that generated capital gain taxes. Buoyed by the modest increase in revenues, the Legislature decided to wait until the "May revise" when the governor presents his next budget that will include the April tax revenues.

Funding for access to our preventive services survived the budget cuts once again. But, uncertainties in our economy remain. Unemployment rates continue to depress the budget outlook.

Because we know how vital it is for women to have access to contraception, we must watch the budget process closely and be prepared to call upon our supporters to advocate for continued access to family planning services for all low-income Californians. rw

California Congresswoman Lois Capps on Birth Control

Letter to constituant from Congresswoman Lois Capps:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your concern for the high cost of birth control. I appreciate hearing from you regarding this important issue.

You will be pleased to know we are in complete agreement. I am a proud co-sponsor of the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act (H.R. 4054) which would allow drug companies to again offer college clinics and safety net healthcare providers a significantly discounted rate on birth control purchases. As you know, this reduced price allowed providers to offer low cost birth control to their patients who often cannot afford to pay full price for contraceptives.

H.R. 4054 corrects a provision in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 that went into effect this year that mistakenly prevented drug companies from continuing to offer discounted birth control.

As a result, many college clinics can no longer afford to provide birth control to their students. For student health centers and other clinics that still offer birth control, the prices have increased astronomically from an average of $5 to nearly $50 per month. I am very concerned the increased costs have made it more difficult for many women to obtain safe and effective birth control.

I firmly believe that students should NOT (edited) have to pay such a steep price for a bureaucratic oversight. Women who can't afford birth control should not be made to suffer the consequences of an unintended pregnancy. I hope this bill moves quickly through the legislative process so we restore access to safe, effective and affordable birth control for women across the country.

State of Washington - Legislative Funds for Reproductive Care Services

The final supplemental Washington State budget included $5 million for reproductive health care services!

Family planning advocates originally requested $8 million to ensure family planning services for the low-income Washingtonians and consider $5 million in a victory.

Securing new funding at all in a supplemental budget year is a challenge. Legislators also faced decreasing revenue forecasts. Including $5 million for family planning is a tribute to family planning advocates who spoke up on the importance of reproductive health care. rw

US Montana;: Bill Would Offer Comprehensive Sex Ed Funding

Rep. Teresa Henry is proposing a bill that would provide more than $500,000 in state grants to health departments each year for such programs that include instruction about abstinence, contraception, STDs, drug and alcohol use and could not teach religion.

The programs would have to promote self-esteem, nonviolent relationships and healthy attitudes.

If 42% of teens in Montana are sexually active, how does an abstinence-only program help? Teens told lawmakers they're learning about sex from their friends, and teaching it more may help prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs.

Opponents said sex education should be developed at the local level, not the state. Programs like the one proposed ultimately work to undermine parental control.

In 2001, lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to require that schools promote abstinence. Henry will introduce a bill to allow nurses at family planning clinics to dispense contraceptives. rw

US Colorado;: Archbishop Fires 1st Salvo at Gov. Ritter; the Catholic Leader Blasts a Plan to Restore State Funds to Family-planning Clinics That Offer Abortion.

Catholic archbishop Chaput calls the Democrat governer's pledge to lift restrictions on state-funded pregnancy prevention and family-planning programs "seriously flawed public policy."

Governer Ritter, a Catholic, wants to lift an order by his predecessor, Republican Bill Owens, also a Catholic, that restricted groups that perform abortions from getting state money for family planning and pregnancy prevention.

Only family-planning groups that can segregate state funds from money spent on abortions would be eligible. Chaput's believes Catholic politicians must adhere to church teachings. Much of Chaput's ire focused on Planned Parenthood, which lost nearly $400,000 in state funding. Planned Parenthood specializes in preventing children," Chaput wrote. Chaput questioned whether it's possible to segregate money for abortion and family planning. Planned Parenthood may not seize the opportunity if the restrictions are lifted, given the high costs of restructuring to meet the state's demands. Chaput did not challenge Ritter's abortion stance during the campaign. rw

U.S.: Medical Panel Recommends No-Cost Birth Control

if Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius accepts the recommendations released today the Institute of Medicine (IoM), health insurance plans may soon have to offer prescription contraception at no upfront cost to women.

In addition to contraception, the study calls for eight additional services for women to be added to the list of preventive care patients should be offered with no cost-sharing. The new services include annual "well-woman" visits; screening of pregnant women for gestational diabetes; screening for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV; more support for breast-feeding mothers; and counseling and screening for possible domestic violence.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that 98%of sexually active women will use contraception at some point during their reproductive years, and that cost concerns are frequently cited as a reason for inconsistent use or use of a less then optimal method. Guttmacher said in testimony submitted to the IoM: "Women citing cost concerns were twice as likely as other women to rely on condoms or less effective methods like withdrawal or periodic abstinence."

The IoM panel was firm in rejecting claims by opponents, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, that "to prevent pregnancy is not to prevent a disease."

"Women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to receive delayed or no prenatal care and to smoke, consume alcohol, be depressed, and experience domestic violence during pregnancy, the panel wrote. "Unintended pregnancy also increases the risk of babies being born preterm or at a low birth weight, both of which raise their chances of health and developmental problems," it noted.

A PBS article, "Women Should Get Free Birth Control" said: "the highly influential IOM report recommends that all U.S.-approved birth control methods be covered by insurers. That includes the controversial 'morning-after' or 'Plan B' pill that is considered by some to be a form of abortion because the woman takes it in the hours after sexual intercourse. "

"The IOM's recommendation to include all FDA contraceptive methods as a critical preventative service—without cost sharing—and to cover the patient education and counseling necessary to ensure each woman can choose the method best for her, is a critical step in empowering all women to plan their pregnancies," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif.

But from the opponent's side: "Several drugs have been approved by the FDA to be legally categorized as 'emergency contraceptives,' despite functioning in ways that can destroy a preborn baby before or after implanting in the mother's womb," said Jeanne Monahan of the conservative Family Research Council. "A federal mandate to all insurance plans to include drugs such as ella essentially would mandate coverage for abortion. Inclusion of contraceptives also undermines conscience protections that President Obama promised would be maintained."

Australia: The Spin-doctors Are at it Again

The spin-doctors of the Business Council of Australia are demanding rampant population growth for Australia -- "to around 30 million in 2030 and 36 million in 2050". And they are trying to present this selfish demand as reasonable and they are calling this "Moderate Population Growth the Best Path to Prosperity," in its submission to Tony Burke, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities on how to achieve a sustainable population for Australia. On its cover-page: Improving the quality of life of all Australians within prosperous, secure and liveable communities requires well-managed population growth over the first half of this century.

Myth: Australia's current annual rate of population growth, and/or those demanded by business lobbyists, are "moderate" or "balanced". Comment: Not so! They are higher than those of many third world countries (Indonesia 1.2% a year). Our recent range of 1.7% to 2.1% is 4 to 6 times the average of industrialised countries. We are headed for close to 100 million Australians by the end of the century.

While it is easy to import population growth it is very difficult to go in the opposite direction. Hence we need to remember that Australia's population growth is effectively not reversible.

Myth: Big Business has made a good case for continued population growth. Comment: Not so. The list of the world's most prosperous countries is dominated by those with under 20 million people.

Myth: Science and technology will save us, so there's no need to cap population. Comment: People who say this are rarely scientists. Mostly they are growth economists brought up on an ideology that there are no limits to growth, or else persons with a vested interest in growth.

The Australian Academy of Science back in 1994, before Peak Oil or Climate Change were widely accepted, warned government that 23 million was Australia's safe upper limit.

Myth: We in Australia have plenty of resources. Comment: Not so. The 3rd Inter-generational Report notes that our oil - the commodity on which our civilisation depends - will be gone by 2020.

Fertiliser price is directly linked to energy prices. Many business plans will not survive, and economic downturn is likely. To add more people to a low-energy future is foolish. Our iron ore, LPG gas and many other resources are fast running out.

Myth: Sustainable means keeping our businesses going. Comment: No, human sustainability means above all being prepared for Peak Oil.

Giant Weapons Maker Becomes Big Brother

Lockheed Martin received US $36 billion in government contracts in 2008 alone, more than any company in history. It now does work for more than two dozen government agencies.

It's involved in surveillance and information processing for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Pentagon, the Census Bureau, and the Postal Service.

In recent times, though, it's doing everything from hiring interrogators for US overseas prisons to managing a private intelligence network in Pakistan and helping write the Afghan constitution.

It spent $12 million on congressional lobbying and campaign contributions in 2009 alone. Not surprisingly, it's the top contributor to the incoming House Armed Services Committee chairman, Republican Howard P "Buck" McKeon of California, giving more than $50,000. It also tops the list of donors to Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye.

While the bulk of its influence-peddling activities may be perfectly legal, the company also has quite a track record when it comes skirting with the law: it ranks number one on the "contractor misconduct" database maintained by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington DC-based watchdog group.

Even listing the government and quasi-governmental agencies the company has contracts with is a daunting task, but here's just a partial run-down: the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Land Management, the Census Bureau, the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense (including the army, the navy, the marines, the air force and the Missile Defense Agency), the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Technology Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the General Services Administration, the Geological Survey, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of State, the Social Security Administration, the US Customs Service, the US Postal Service, the Department of Transportation, the Transportation Security Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

When president Dwight D Eisenhower warned 50 years ago this month of the dangers of "unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex", he could never have dreamed that one for-profit weapons outfit would so fully insinuate itself into so many aspects of American life. rw

MAHB - the Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior: Your Invitation to Participate

While scholars have adequately detailed how to deal with the major issues of the human predicament caused by our success as a species, nothing serious is being done. There is clearly not a need for more natural science but rather a need for better understanding of human behaviors and how they can be altered to direct humanity toward a sustainable society before it is too late.

Thus a group of natural scientists, social scientists, and scholars from the humanities decided to inaugurate a Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior (MAHB --- pronounced "mob"). It is human behavior, toward one another and toward the planet that sustains all of us, that requires rapid modification. It is hoped that MAHB will serve as a major tool for promoting conscious cultural evolution.

The MAHB is partially modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which involves hundreds of scientists and whose role is to sort out the scientific validity of claims and counterclaims of competing interests and to find equitable solutions. Sessions are open and transparent, and representatives of various governments, interested industries, and environmental organizations also participate as observers.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, developed to assess the condition of Earth's life-support systems, may serve as another partial model for MAHB.

Plans are for the MAHB to be kicked off with a world megaconference, targeted for 2011, to initiate a continuing process. If you are interested in learning more follow the link in the headline.

Hillary's Challenge: Would Putting Women First Make for Better Foreign Policy?

In March, Hillary Clinton accepted the Margaret Sanger award from Planned Parenthood. In her speech, she laid out the connections between reproductive rights and global security. She said the reproductive-rights movement was "one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race."

"Too many women are denied even the opportunity to know about how to plan and space their families," she said. "And the derivative inequities that result from all of that are evident in the fact that women and girls are still the majority of the world's poor, unschooled, unhealthy, and underfed. This is and has been for many years a matter of personal and professional importance to me, and I want to assure you that reproductive rights and the umbrella issue of women's rights and empowerment will be a key to the foreign policy of this administration."

Chris Smith, Rep, New Jersey, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has fought throughout his career reproductive rights worldwide. He has urged foreign politicians not to liberalize their abortion laws and led the way to freeze the American contribution to the United Nations Population Fund.

When Smith asked Clinton, "Is the Obama administration seeking in any way to weaken or overturn pro-life laws and policies in African and Latin American countries?" ... "Does the United States' definition of the term 'reproductive health' or 'reproductive services' or 'reproductive rights' include abortion?" ...

Clinton answered: "When I think about the suffering that I have seen, of women around the world -- I've been in hospitals in Brazil, where half the women were enthusiastically and joyfully greeting new babies, and the other half were fighting for their lives against botched abortions. ... We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women's health, and reproductive health includes access to abortion, that I believe should be safe, legal, and rare."

Clinton said in a 1995 speech at the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, "Women's rights are human rights, once and for all." The New York Times said it "may have been her finest moment in public life."

Even though politically contentious, reproductive rights may be the area where rapid progress is easiest. One of Obama's first acts was to repeal the so-called "global gag rule," which had denied American funding to organizations working abroad that perform abortions, counsel women that abortion is an option, or advocate for abortion-law liberalization. Obama also restored American funding to the United Nations Population Fund.

To create change for women's rights, Clinton has to change the way State Department employees think about their job. Ultimately, she must to begin to change cultures, both in Washington and around the world.

U.S.: How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma

For Roman Catholics, the thought of pro-choice Kennedy to campaign for the unlimited right to abortion is discouraging. Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Catholics John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, was so concerned to assure pro-abortion leaders in New York, that one of her first calls was to indicate she will be strongly pro-choice.

Ms. Kennedy promised to work for several causes, including same-sex marriage and abortion rights. She believes "young women facing unwanted pregnancies should have the advice of caring adults," she would oppose legislation that would require minors to notify a parent before obtaining an abortion. Ms. Kennedy chose to say only that she "supports Roe v. Wade, which prohibits third trimester abortions except when the life or health of the mother is at risk." Ms. Kennedy's commitment to abortion rights is shared by other prominent family members. rw

U.S.: Why a New President May Slow Population Growth

If a Democratic president enters the White House some experts anticipate a greater effort by the US to restrain world population growth.

The four-year population-growth projection is comparable to the 303 million people living in the US, now the third most populous nation in the world after China and India.

Should a Democratic candidate become president, enthusiasts for more family planning assistance anticipate, a repudiation of the Mexico City Policy that makes organizations ineligible for US family planning money if they use non US funds to provide abortions. The Mexico City Policy was announced by President Reagan in 1984. It was repudiated by President Clinton, and was reinstated by President Bush.

Some family-planning advocates see the tribal conflicts in Kenya as one indication of the need to provide poor women with the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies. When President Truman was in office, Kenya's population was 6 million. Today it is six times that and growing rapidly. Rapid population growth in itself is not a direct cause of conflict, but it can exacerbate underlying conditions of conflict.

In Kenya, the government has difficulty educating and finding jobs for hordes of young people. 73% of Kenyans are under 30. There is competition for farmland. Some of the worst tribal battles have occurred in rural areas.

In many countries, rapid population growth raises tensions between groups. They are all competing for the same living space and resources. The world's population is adding 78 million people a year, mostly in South Asia and Africa. Even in China, where the government was bolstering its one-child rule, the large number of couples of reproductive age means that the population grows by about 8 million people a year.

Family planning advocates see a faster reduction in population growth as crucial to the health of the world's environment and for easing the competition for resources. Total US assistance for family planning peaked in 1995 at $577 million. Today, it is 41% less in inflation-adjusted dollars. Organized voluntary family planning programs have a 40-year track record of success. In Iran, for example, a woman had an average of 5.5 children in 1988. Today, there are 2.1 births per woman, just enough to stabilize Iran's population.

In Thailand, the "total fertility rate" has dropped to fewer than two births per woman, compared with seven births per woman just two decades earlier. Fully voluntary programs can decrease population growth and "alleviate the increasing burden it places on the environment." But will require the US overcoming "opposition from ideological conservatives, who try to minimize the significance of continued population growth or to limit the medical options of those seeking to avoid pregnancy and disease." rw

Right-Wingers Bash Gore for Wanting Women to Have Access to Birth Control: Gore's Radical Agenda: Save Babies, Educate Girls, Empower Women

by Lisa Hymas, Grist's senior editor

Al Gore criticizing Obama for inaction on climate drew a lot of attention from the mainstream media, but when Al Gore said we should educate girls, keep kids from dying, and make birth control available to women, the right-wing media cranked up.

Gore gave one of most mild and noncontroversial statements anyone could make about population: "One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principal ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children. You have to lift child-survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families. And most important, you have to educate girls and empower women. And that's the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices."

He didn't say governments should make people have fewer children. He didn't say people ought to decide on their own to have fewer children.

But climate denier Anthony Watts says "Al Gore branches out into population control theory."

Joe Newby at Examiner.com "Al Gore promotes having fewer children to curb pollution," a good idea, but not what Gore said.

Billy Hallowell at The Blaze said "Gore said that couples need to learn to 'feel comfortable having small families' so that pollution can be curbed," while Gore actually said that parents might "feel comfortable having small families" if they were confident their kids wouldn't die young.

Conservatives seem to need to maintain their favorite stereotype of greens as fascist quasi-eugenicists who want to control population via tyranny. Some of them need to find plausible-sounding excuses to go after contraception.

It's almost hard to believe that there are still Americans who object to birth control -- more than 99% of American women who've had intercourse have used contraception, including 98% of Catholic women.86% of Americans say the availability of the Pill has been a good thing for society.

Hard-core right-wingers want to stop women from using birth control. Texas state Rep. Wayne Christian (R), said: "Well of course it's a war on birth control."

Who's got the radical agenda?

Indian Ideas, Models

Bill and Melinda Gates, cochairs of the world's largest private foundation, are in India to talk about healthcare.

"India is a hotbed of innovation. The ideas and healthcare interventions we work on here can help solve world's problems, be it in Guatemala , Zambia or elsewhere," said Melinda Gates in Delhi.

"While India's economy is growing at a fast pace, the country is also home to half of the world's malnourished children" .. "notably in Bihar which has a population of 98 million and one of the worst affected by the burden of disease".

Since 2003, the foundation has invested more than $1.2 billion in projects aimed at improving public health and development outcomes in the country. In India, the foundation focuses mainly on women and child care, eradication of polio, malaria and HIV.

Mr Gates said the foundation is open to working with the government on its family planning services.

"Bihar has an immense capacity to innovate. If it were a country , it would be the 12th largest in the world. Some of the things we have done here can be taken to other regions as well,' Gates said. Even things like getting men to deliver vaccines on cycles and training women to deliver them to target populations have made immense impact on improving healthcare.

Gates Warns of Pressure on Health Aid

Funding for health is being squeezed out by donor support for climate change, says Bill Gates, one of the world's leading philanthropists.

Mr Gates himself is stepping up investment in carbon-free energy and green technology.

"If just 1 per cent of the $100 billion goal [for carbon reduction] came from vaccine funding, then 700,000 more children could die from preventable diseases. In the long run, not spending on health is a bad deal for the environment because improvements in health, including voluntary family planning, lead people to have smaller families, which in turn reduces the strain on the environment."

Gates, in an interview with the Financial Times, said that, by tackling child mortality, his existing programmes were helping reduce the birth rate and cut demographic pressure, while work on improved agricultural crops that were drought resistant was helping to deal with the consequences of global warming.

Gates felt that energy consumption would not be sufficient to tackle climate change; the best solution for global warming was for-profit investment in new carbon-free energy technologies.

Billionaire Club in Bid to Curb Overpopulation; America's Richest People Meet to Discuss Ways of Tackling a 'disastrous' Environmental, Social and Industrial Threat

David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America�s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey met to consider spending some of their wealth on slowing the growth of the world�s population and speed up improvements in health and education.

They met in secret to discuss joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change, and they didn't want to be seen as a global cabal. These members of the "Good Club", one member dubbed it, have given away more than �45 billion since 1996 to causes ranging from health programmes in developing countries to ghetto schools nearer to home.

The issues debated included reforming the supervision of overseas aid spending to setting up rural schools and water systems in developing countries. Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.

Gates, who is giving away most of his fortune, said last February, �Official projections say the world�s population will peak at 9.3 billion [today the population is 6.86 billion, growing at about 1 billion every 12 years] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive healthcare, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion.�

Ted Turner on Going Green

The Ted Turner Foundation supports efforts for improving air and water quality, developing sustainable energy resources, safeguarding environmental health, maintaining wildlife habitat protection and developing practices and policies to curb population growth rates. Underlying Ted Turner's endeavors is a dedication to conservation and the environment. The average food item in the US travels more than 1,000 miles from where it's grown to where it's consumed. If you ordered dinner sent from California and had to pay the transportation cost, it's just ridiculous.

Humanity is facing such a crisis caused by mainly two things: First, the increasing number of people. Just 70 years ago, there were two billion people on earth. Now there's 6 and a half billion�three and a half times as many people! Human beings are overwhelming the environment, and that's what's leading to problems like global warming and the hole in the ozone layer. The second problem is that we're using more stuff. In America, the average home today is twice the square footage it was 70 tears ago. Now everybody stops by the grocery store every day or two or stops by the fast food place to get something. To get things turned around it's going to take government, individuals, everything we have. We're going to have to have a new renaissance of intelligent planning for the future.

We didn't go along with Kyoto. We should have been fighting a war against global warming rather than a war against the Iraqis. rw

Philanthropist and Media Pioneer Ted Turner and the Jacoby Group ...

Ted Turner will be the recipient of the 2008 Lindbergh Award in recognition of his dedication to the environment. The Jacoby Group will be the recipient of the Lindbergh Corporate Award for their commitment to sustainable and environmentally sensitive development. "As the largest landowner in the country, Ted Turner is making a huge contribution toward not only protecting the environment from development, but also promoting the conservation and re-introduction of native species on his land," said Foundation Chairman. His efforts on behalf of the environment combined with his endeavor to provide clean energy make him an ideal recipient for the Lindbergh Award which is presented annually to individuals who have made significant contributions over many years toward improving our quality of life by balancing technological advancements and the preservation of our environment.

Turner established the Turner Foundation which supports clean water and toxic reduction projects; clean air through improved energy efficiency and renewables; wildlife habitat protection; and equitable practices and policies aimed at reducing population growth rates. "We have a beautiful, fragile planet where all people and all things are interdependent and interconnected," says Turner on the Turner Foundation, Inc., web site.

Turner launched a clean energy business venture to provide clean power solutions to several U.S. markets, including California. Turner believes our future depends on changing the way we use energy, and recommends moving away from fossil fuels and developing long-term energy solutions that work. rw

Pro-Lifers Against Buffett-Gates Alliance

Warren Buffett's alliance with Bill Gates won widespread praise, but anti-choice activists assailed the donors for their support of Planned Parenthood and international birth-control programmes.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Buffett has pledged the bulk of his $44 billion fortune, devotes the majority of its funding to combating disease and poverty in developing countries. Less than 1% has gone to Planned Parenthood.

"The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world," said a Roman Catholic Priest who is President of Human Life International.

A former Planned Parenthood President, said she was appalled by the harsh attacks.

The foundation founded by Buffett, came under fire from some anti-abortion groups in the 1990s after it gave $2 million to fund clinical trials of RU-486. Susan Buffett was eulogized after her death in 2004 as a champion of women's reproductive health.

The Gates Foundation is a patron of reproductive-health programmes, funding research to improve birth control.

Planned Parenthood, has received $34 million from the Gates Foundation out of a total of $10.5 billion worldwide.

The Gates Foundation stipulated that its gifts to Planned Parenthood not be used for abortion services.

At the 2003 annual shareholders meeting, anti-abortion activists cited Microsoft's support for Planned Parenthood in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the company from contributing to charities. rw

Canada: Pregnancy, Haunted by Death

Ghana's former high commissioner to Canada, the late Richard Turkson, spoke at the screening in Ottawa of the documentary Empty-handed, about the lack of access to contraceptives in Uganda. Citing a passage from the Book of Genesis in the Bible: "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and conception; in sorrow thou shall bring forth children ...", Turkson said "Men have long misinterpreted this passage as a mandate to lord it over women and show very little concern, if any, for women's fertility-related problems,"

"Over time, God's anger seems to have abated in many parts of the world; it appears, however, that in sub-saharan Africa, it continues unabated. Women's lives (there) are largely governed by unnecessarily hazardous pregnancies and child bearing; similarly, their death is often dictated by pregnancy and child birth. Worse still, everywhere in Africa, it is the women, not the men, who suffer from mutilation, disease and death in pursuit of the high premium we traditionally place on fertility, particularly on male children."

The fight to get contraceptives into the hands of African women is far from over.

The Canadian government - although it has led a G8 push for improved maternal health in the developing world - needs to hear this message, since it appears to remain lukewarm to family planning as a key to reducing maternal deaths, and as a development tool. That makes it unusual among western nations, according to some. Canada is not represented at the Senegal conference.

Susan Cohen, director of government affairs at the Guttmacher Institute said Canada was an outlier and "Canadians were dragging their feet on the investment in family planning."

Canada's $1-billionplus commitment to reducing maternal mortality did include family planning, but not abortion. However Canada's maternal health funding is only about $13 million of about $800 million so far - something critics say isn't nearly enough.

Cohen said "It is impossible to achieve the millennium development goal (of reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters) without investing in maternal and newborn health as well as family planning." The number of women in the world who want contraception and can't get them - is estimated at 215 million. Better access to contraceptives would not only reduce maternal deaths, reduce unsafe abortions and improve the health of newborns, because their births would not be spaced so closely together, it would increase education rates among women.

Canadian women have long taken for granted what many women in the developing world don't have- control over when they have children.

Britain, on the other hand, has made family planning a "major priority" according to Stephen O'Brien, parliamentary undersecretary of state for Britain's department of International Development, who attended the Senegal family planning conference.

"Having children should bring joy," he said during a conference call from Senegal. "For far too many women, having children amounts to a death sentence. ... Family planning is a smart, simple and extremely cost effective investment."

One of the messages from the Senegal conference was that family planning is a key to improving not only the health of women and children, but a country's economic health as well.

U.S.: Colorado Amendment 62 Classifies Eggs or Sperm as a 'Person'

Proposed Amendment 62 says: "Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the term "person" shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."

If this bill passes, a woman with ovarian cancer could not have her ovaries removed in Colorado and a doctor who performed such a lifesaving surgery would be punished for murder!

Anyone knows that the start of the biological development is the human egg, and that girls are born with all the eggs that their ovaries will ever contain. So removing an ovary (even if diseased) would mean the removal of thousands of "persons".

A woman whose doctorate is in biochemistry and is loosely associated with Georgetown University wrote this wording. An ethicist against abortion, what she has framed is so poorly defined that the above scenario is possible.

This proposed amendment is unclear, unsupportable, andis misogyninistic and it would cost the state of Colorado millions of dollars to implement. Only the lawyers would profit if it is passed.

One current legal definition of "person" is "an autonomous being". This foolish proposed amendment would certainly change that, since a fetus, embryo or egg are anything but autonomous! Passing the amendment would make major changes in the legal world, and would keep Colorado's lawyers employed for years trying to figure out the ramifications.

This is clearly a case of infringement of our constitutional rights when one person's religion interferes with the ability of another person to seek medical care. The supporters of this proposed amendment don't stop with facts.

Many of the same people who are against abortion are also against any contraception. They claim, against the judgment of most reputable scientists, that IUDs, emergency contraception and even “the pill" work by causing an abortion. If this crazy amendment were passed, all of these birth control methods might become unavailable in Colorado.

This amendment has no provision for abortion in cases of rape, incest or when a pregnancy endangers the mother's life. This proposed amendment would make interrupting a pregnancy illegal—including saving the life of the mother! Even the strict “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops" allows interrupting an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy, because the pregnancy threatens a woman's life. rw

Population: the Last Taboo

Note: this very long article is well worth reading. To do it justice, follow the link in the headline for the entire article. Otherwise read the following shortened version. Please also read my comments below. Karen Gaia

Calcutta (Kolkata) is home to about 5 million people, at a population density of 70,000 per square mile — 2.5 times more crowded than New York City. Another 9 million live in the urban agglomeration, bringing the population of greater Kolkata to 14 million.

Survival in the 21st century lies in the depth of the snowpack in the Himalayas, the sustainable tonnage of fish caught in the Bay of Bengal, in the inches of topsoil remaining on the Indian plains, and in the parts per million of coal smoke in the air. The root cause of India's dwindling resources and escalating pollution is the same: the continued exponential growth of humankind.

Around 1965 the people of the Earth collectively taxed only 70% of the Earth's biocapacity each year. We first overdrew our accounts in 1983, when our population of nearly 4.7 billion began to consume natural resources faster than they could be replenished. Last year, 6.8 billion of us consumed the renewable resources of 1.4 Earths.

The United Nations projects that world population will stabilize at 9.1 billion in 2050. This prediction assumes a decline from the current average global fertility rate of 2.56 children per woman to 2.02 children per woman in the years between 2045 and 2050.

But if mothers average half a child more in 2045, the world population will peak at 10.5 billion five years later. Half a child less, and it stabilizes at 8 billion. The difference in those projections—2.5 billion—is the total number of people alive on Earth in 1950.

The only known solution to ecological overshoot is to decelerate our population growth faster than it's decelerating now and eventually reverse it — at the same time we slow and eventually reverse the rate at which we consume the planet's resources. Success in these twin endeavors will crack our most pressing global issues: climate change, food scarcity, water supplies, immigration, health care, biodiversity loss, even war.

On one front, we've already made unprecedented strides, reducing global fertility from an average 4.92 children per woman in 1950 to 2.56 today — an accomplishment of trial and sometimes brutally coercive error, but also a result of one woman at a time making her individual choices. The speed of this childbearing revolution, swimming hard against biological programming, rates as perhaps our greatest collective feat to date.

But it's still not fast enough. Faced with a world that can support either a lot of us consuming a lot less or far fewer of us consuming more, we're deadlocked. On the divisive question of the ideal size of the human family, we're united in a pact of silence.

In India, where the dynamics of overpopulation and overconsumption are most acute, where the lifelines between water, food, fuel, and 1.17 billion people — 17% of humanity subsisting on less than 2.5% of the globe's land — are already stretched dangerously thin.

Fears from the past—of racism, eugenics, colonialism, forced sterilization, forced family planning, plus the fears from some of contraception, abortion, and sex are reasons we don't talk about overpopulation. We don't really talk about overconsumption because of ignorance about the economics of overpopulation and the true ecological limits of Earth.

In 1798 in an Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus, a political economist, argued that humans were destined to grow geometrically, while food production could increase only arithmetically, guaranteeing that famine would cinch the growth of humankind within the scarce purse of resources.

Malthus opposed government assistance to the poor on the grounds that it enabled more people to reproduce without the means to support themselves. He suggested a solution to the growing numbers of impoverished people he considered poor specimens, a eugenics-like answer popular in his time, based on animal husbandry and designed to "upgrade" the human race. In addition, Reverend Malthus believed families needed to limit their numbers of children, yet he opposed contraception. Only abstinence was acceptable.

Long before Malthus, humans sought to accommodate promiscuous intercourse without the entanglements of pregnancy. Even prior to the European discovery of rubber in the New World, men wore condoms: of oiled silk paper; fine leather or tortoiseshell.

India today prides itself on being the world's largest democracy. But it's also the hungriest, only recently and barely liberated from "the most dreadful famines" Malthus wrote of. One of every two underfed people on Earth lives here. 40% of Indian children under the age of five are underweight and stunted. India's underfed are increasing. In the state of Bihar, 9 of 10 rural children are anemic, a telltale marker of hunger and malnutrition.

In The Population Bomb, Ehrlich predicted that India could not possibly attain food self- sufficiency. Instead, American agronomist Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution" brought dwarf wheat strains and chemical fertilizers to increase India's crop yields 168% within a decade, defusing defused the population 'bomb; and earning Ehrlich the dismissive title of Malthusian. Ever since, the subject has been largely taboo.

David Brower, the former executive director, of the Sierra, originally suggested Ehrlich write The Population Bomb. The Sierra Club had long supported population stabilization. But in the 1990s, anti-immigration activists spurred by John Tanton—who controls an array of English-only, zero- immigration, and nativist groups—stealthily twice attempted to take over the board. Perhaps naively, some Sierra Club stalwarts concerned with population joined their cause. The battle lasted for a decade, culminating when Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center ran for Sierra's board in an effort to expose Tanton's true agenda—and the fact that one of his groups had accepted money from white supremacists. [Karen Gaia: This is not the whole story - see note below].

Ehrlich's NGO Zero Population Growth then parted ways with Tanton (a past president), renamed itself the Population Connection, and embraced an end-poverty-to-curb-population approach. Ehrlich and his wife Anne, a conservation biologist, also left the board of Tanton's Federation for American Immigration Reform. Yet the scars between environmentalists and the development community are only beginning to heal. "When you talk about population," says Larry Fahn, Sierra Club president during some of the bitterest infighting, "the immigration people come out of the woodwork with their hate mongering. It's unfortunate that the subject brings out a racist agenda."

Abortion is an even more toxic issue. "Many conservation and nongovernmental organizations that run on member support, even the big ones, shy away from the population issue, because it puts their funding at risk. Even if you're talking about population as a sustainability issue, there's often an automatic assumption you'll be talking about abortion."

Despite the silence, the problem of overpopulation has not gone away. The miracle of the Green Revolution disguised four ominous truths about Earth's limits:

1. Chemical fertilizers of nitrogen and phosphorus are destined to run out, along with the natural resources used to produce them;

2. Fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that grew the food that enabled our enormous population growth in the 20th century bore expensive downstream costs in the form of polluted land, water, and air that now threaten life

3. Increasing fertilizer use has become necessary to keep crop yields stable, oversaturating the soils with nitrogen, and yields are starting to fall despite this;

4. Topsoil is being to the wind via mechanized agriculture, runoff and erosion.

Geomorphologist David Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations calculates that human activities are eroding topsoil 10 times faster than it can be replenished. "Just when we need more soil to feed the 10 billion people of the future," he says, "we'll actually have less — only a quarter of an acre of cropland per person in 2050, versus the half-acre we use today on the most efficient farms." ... "We could, with crippling environmental costs, raze the Amazonian rainforests and reap 5 to 10 years of crops before the tropical soils failed. But the fertile prairies of the Midwest, northern China, and northern Europe are already plowed to capacity and shrinking."

Nearly a quarter of India's lands, more than 314,000 square miles, are desert or in the process of becoming desert, according to a recent Indian government report. Desertification will double India's current water usage by 2030, as more water is rerouted to irrigate an increasingly drier landscape to grow rice, wheat, and sugar for an increasing population, including the growing demands of a growing middle class. Severe deficits in water — and, by default, food — are forecast in India by 2030.

With the combined factors of peak oil, peak topsoil with global warming, a 20 to 30% decline in crop yields in the next 80 years is predicted by the peer-reviewed journal Science.

The process of photosynthesis itself declines precipitously as temperatures rise above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, making it increasingly difficult to maintain — let alone increase — crop yields. (The European heat wave of 2003 that killed up to 50,000 people also slashed crop harvests by as much as 36%.) Rising temperatures will put nearly all of India's crops at risk in the near future.

India's "atmospheric brown cloud"—the smog that fouls the subcontinent between monsoons—could undermine crop yields by up to 40%. Not only is there more smog in Asia, but Asian crops appear more sensitive to smog than crops in North America or Europe, even crops of the same variety. No one knows why.

The UN calculates that 36 million die of hunger and malnutrition every year—a person every second, mostly women and children. History may yet remember Paul Ehrlich as the premature prophet, not the false one, his predictions off by decades rather than degree.

I'm struck by how some of us are literally siphoning the flesh and blood from the rest of us, segregating ourselves into beings so calorically and structurally different that paleontologists of the distant future might well classify our fossilized skeletons as separate species.

At the time agriculture was invented,Homo Sapiens had super-prolific birth rates, but short life expectancies averaging a mere 10 years, breeding and dying in boom cycles busted by famines, natural disasters, diseases, and violence. Around 500 AD, we suffered centuries of bust, ravaged by the Black Death and its piggybacking disasters sweeping west from Asia—the last check on our growth. Since then, nothing has reversed our growth.

Two hundred million women have no access whatsoever to contraception, contributing to the one in four unplanned births worldwide and the 50 million pregnancies aborted each year, half of them performed clandestinely, killing 68,000 women in the process.John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health at University College, London says it is not true that that poor rural couples actively plan to have large families because of high child mortality or to provide for their care in old age. They have large families simply because they, like most of us, have sex many, many times in their lifetimes and they do not have adequate contraception.

139 million new people are added every year: more than an entire Japan, nearly an entire Russia, minus the homelands and the resources to go along with them. Countered against the 56 million deaths annually, our world gains 83 million extra people every year, the equivalent of another Iran.

Eventually, most of these 83 million new people added every year will have kids, too.

Statistician Paul Murtaugh of Oregon State University decided to investigate the environmental price tag of a baby. "An American child born today adds an average 10,407 tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of her mother. That's almost six times more CO2 than the mother's own lifetime emissions. Furthermore, the ecological costs of that child and her children far outweigh even the combined energy-saving choices from all a mother's other good decisions, like buying a fuel- efficient car, recycling, using energy-saving appliances and lightbulbs. The carbon legacy of one American child and her offspring is 20 times greater than all those other sustainable maternal choices combined."

Due to India's drastically lower levels of consumption combined with shorter lifespans (63.8 years on average for India, versus 80.2 years for the US), an American child has 55 times the carbon legacy of a child born to a family in India. While India is conservatively predicted to grow by 400 million people by 2050, the US is projected to grow by 86 million. But take those additional Americans and factor in their 55-times-higher carbon legacy (at current national consumption rates), and they will equal the legacy of 4.7 billion Indians.

"The irony," says Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women, "is that just as some Americans are starting to learn to live more like traditional Indians—becoming vegetarian, buying locally, eating organic—aspiring middle-class Indians are trying to live more like overconsuming Americans. The question really is, which kind of people do we want less of?"

Stage Two of population growth: In the late 18th century in Britain, the onset of urbanization and industrialization brought about the first population explosion, as birth rates leveled but death rates plunged dramatically. This was spawned (ironically, despite Malthus' fears) by more and better food: the superior nutrition of corn and potatoes imported from the Americas, and an agricultural revolution brought on by scientific advances in farming. Stage two was also triggered by a revolution in our understanding of disease, which led to better handling of water, sewage, food, and ourselves. The primary driver behind this new science of hygiene was increased literacy among women, who wrote and read health-education pamphlets, and who managed the daily cleanliness of families and hospitals.

The ripple of change that comes from empowering women — what some call the ‘the girl effect'— is uniting the once-divided conservation and human rights communities.

Stage three is when fertility rates drop closer to death rates. India today is navigating stage three, which includes a contraceptive revolution, different in every time and place: in Europe 200 years ago, a revolution of coitus interruptus and condoms; in India today, birth control pills and, often, sterilization after the first son is born. This pivotal phase coincides with profound cultural changes, as women end their isolation in the home to enter the workplace and network with other women. Wage-earning women claim more responsibility for childbearing and child-rearing decisions, leading to a revolution in children's lives, as the decision is made to pay for schooling—a costly choice necessitating smaller families. This choice is strongly influenced by female literacy, since women who can read even slightly are more likely to send their daughters to school.

In India today, 75% of men are literate, compared to only 54% of women—one of the most lopsided ratios among newly industrialized nations. The statistic corresponds directly to fertility. In the state of Bihar, next door to West Bengal, where literacy falls below the national average—to 60% for males and 33% for females—the total fertility rate swings up to four children per woman. Conversely, the southern Indian state of Kerala, which boasts 94% male literacy and 88% female literacy, has reached a below-replacement-rate fertility that resembles the industrialized world's, at only 1.9 children per woman.

Of the more than 1 in 10 people who can't read or write today, two-thirds are female. Locate them, and you'll find an uncannily accurate roadmap of societal strife—of civil wars, foreign wars, the wars against reason embedded in religiosity, the wars against equality ingrained in patriarchal and caste systems.

When women are educated, they tend to marry later in life, to have children later in life, and to have fewer children. In effect, you have a form of population control that's peaceful, voluntary, and efficient. Plus, educated women do better in business, raising economic growth rates, and lowering societal conflict.

In 2003, the predominantly Catholic Philippines bowed to church demands to support only "natural family planning" — otherwise known as the rhythm method, and grimly referred to as Vatican roulette. The Filipino government no longer provides contraceptives for poor Filipinas, and government clinics no longer distribute donated contraceptives, including the wealth of modern birth control once provided by the US Agency for International Development.

Today more than half of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unplanned—10% more than a decade ago. In a first-of-its kind study in the Philippines, the Guttmacher Institute calculates that easy access to contraception would reduce those births by 800,000 and abortions by half a million a year. Furthermore, it would deliver a net savings to the government on the order of $16.5 million a year in reduced health costs from unwanted pregnancies, including the brutal medical consequences of illegal back-alley abortions.

Iran's fertility rate: 7 in 1980; 1.7 today. From a high of 7.7 in 1966, total fertility fell to 6 during the Shah's reign, spiked to 7 during the Islamic Revolution (when marriage became legal for 12-year-old boys and 9-year-old girls), then plummeted 50% between 1988 and 1996, continuing down to 1.7 today. That plunge, known as the "Iranian miracle," was one of the most rapid fertility declines ever recorded. Women of all childbearing ages in urban and rural parts of the country simply began to have smaller families practically overnight. The feat was engineered through a mobilization between government and media: Information was broadcast nationwide about the value of small families, followed up with education about birth control, implemented with free contraceptives.

Progressive social measures further primed Iran: increasing public education for girls (today more than 60% of Iranian university students are women); a new health care system; access to electricity, safe water, transportation, and communication. Similar fertility reversals have occurred in Costa Rica, Cuba, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, and Morocco—as quickly as in China but minus the brutal one-child policy.

The United States has been less helpful lately, beginning with Ronald Reagan in 1984, the "global gag rule," also known as the Mexico City Policy, prohibited US funding of any foreign family planning organizations providing abortions. The gag rule barred the discussion of abortion or any critique of unsafe abortions, even if these medical services were implemented with the group's own money (a ruling that would have been unconstitutional in the US). Bill Clinton rescinded the policy in 1993, but George W. Bush reinstated it in 2001, and before Barack Obama could rescind it again, the flow of aid to developing countries slowed or even stopped, eviscerating health care and severely undermining family planning efforts in at least 26 developing nations, primarily in Africa.

Joanna Nerquaye-Tetteh, of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana, testified before Congress in 2004 on the policy's effects in her country. "The gag rule completely disrupted decades of investment in building up health care services," she said. "We couldn't provide contraceptives and services to nearly 40,000 women who had formerly used our services. We saw within a year a rise in sexually transmitted infections and more women coming to our clinics for post-abortion care as a result of unsafe abortions."

As a result of the global gag rule, the UN estimates that at its height in 2005, the unmet demand for contraceptives and family planning drove up fertility rates between 15% and 35% in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Arab states, Asia, and Africa—a whole generation of unplanned Bush babies.

In Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen ("villages") Bank in 1983. His revolutionary model was to loan to the unloanable poor—notably women—who lacked collateral, enabling them to develop their own businesses and free themselves from poverty. This radical innovation won Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Empirical studies now support his intuition of 27 years ago: Women make better loan recipients than men if your aim is to increase family well-being. Compared to men's loans, women's loans double family income and increase child survival twentyfold.

The best 21st-century contraceptive is a Yunusian device, a microloan. The paradox embedded in our future is that the fastest way to slow our population growth is to reduce poverty, yet the fastest way to run out of resources is to increase wealth.

The business of microloans is growing exponentially. Between March 2008 and March 2009, 22.6 million people in India received them, 60% more than a year earlier, despite the worst global recession since the Great Depression. This innovative approach to development is rewriting the demographics of poverty.

Rajendra Pachauri, cowinner of a Nobel Prize for his chairmanship of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warns that India's growing population can't afford increased consumption levels. "We can't support lifestyles even remotely like those in Europe and North America," he says. "We need policy initiatives to assure this doesn't happen. But the movement has to take place in both hemispheres. Awareness has to be raised in both the East and the West to deglamorize unsurvivable consumerism."

As of 2005, women in 18 of the 24 wealthiest nations were having more babies than in previous years. Nobody knows why. These 18 are the US, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Finland, Israel, Italy, Sweden, France, Iceland, the UK, New Zealand, Greece, and Ireland. The exceptions are: Japan, Canada, Australia, Austria, Switzerland, and South Korea. This fifth stage is upending a key tenet of social science: that increasing wealth, education, and gender equality invariably and irreversibly trigger a decline in fertility and a smaller population. This small but important fertility increase is good news for those who worry about Social Security deficits, but bad news for those who worry about societal security on a planet with finite resources.

What portion of the increase is due to the cultural norms of new immigrants? Or to abstinence education? The only known correlates are the highest levels of economic and social development. Perhaps the core question is, how much has our silence around population growth contributed to the emergence of this fifth demographic stage? Even in rich nations, most families calculate the costs of each child in their household budget—in the size of their house, the need for quality child care, and college costs. So would these same families make different decisions if they were calculating the costs of each child in their (equally limited) planetary budget—in the costs of clean air, water, and adequate food for all?

The paradox embedded in our future is that the fastest way to slow our population growth is to reduce poverty, yet the fastest way to run out of resources is to increase wealth. The trial ahead is to strike the delicate compromise: between fewer people, and more people with fewer needs...all within a new economy geared toward sustainability. Perhaps this is the sixth stage in our demographic maturity: the transition from 20th-century family planning to 21st-century civilizational planning. rw

U.S.: Concept Paper for An Office of Population in the White House

The writer would like to propose the establishment of an Office of Population in the White House, to elevate the discussion of the issue and to coordinate with the relevant offices in the State Department and at USAID.

There are serious questions regarding the current global strategy for solving the population problem being raised by a significant number of reputable population professionals. Assuming that the US and other donor countries can provide sufficient funding there is growing concern that such a step will fall far short of stopping exponential growth of human numbers and the poverty and human desperation it generates.

The primary focus on the Population Office would be the development of a global strategy for achieving population stabilization and/or reduction worldwide. Assisting with development of policies around the world with regard to population and family planning;

A Population Office would also ensure adequate information and means necessary for people to determine the number and spacing of their children, and promote social, cultural, and attitudinal changes necessary to bring about reduced family size.

While much good has been accomplished by helping people to achieve their desired family size, unless we bring about changes in the status of women and attitudes of men and women will result in slower but unending exponential growth.

The proposed Office of Population would orchestrate the strategy-focused research and develop estimates of the financial resources necessary to achieve success. It would encourage research on linkages between population growth and environmental degradation, women's status, population growth and poverty, etc. The Office of Population must determine what level of population is appropriate globally and in the United States. This should be done in consultation with other governments worldwide and the United Nations.

The Director should be familiar with the population field, the various points of view within the field, and the key players. rw

World Must Act Now to Avoid a Contraceptive Crisis, New Report Says

Now that the world is focusing on the global economic crisis, contraceptive services is in danger of marginalization and neglect. This is doubly sad because contraception is one of the most trusted, most cost-effective and proven poverty-reduction interventions.

This was the gist of a report by International Planned Parenthood Federation - Contraceptives at a Crossroads: Averting a Global Contraceptive Crisis, which came out on World Population Day, July 11. The report described systemic problems that bar individuals and couples from access to reproductive health supplies such as contraception and condoms.

Unless governments and donors act, the health and human rights benefits that family planning and contraception services have delivered over the years will be reversed, and global development efforts will not be achieved.

Women want to space their children, and women who work a lot don't want to be pregnant all of the time.

The World Bank in 2008 reported that tens of millions of unplanned pregnancies occur because women lack access to contraception. "Giving women access to modern contraception and family planning...helps to boost economic growth while reducing high birth rates so strongly linked with endemic poverty, poor education, and high numbers of maternal and infant deaths."

The report recommended matching donations between wealthy and developing countries to increase funding for reproductive health supplies which should be incorporated into national health plans. Governments should collaborate more with the private sector to ensure supply availability and to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Passport to Ghana: Keys to Lasting Development

On June 30, in advance of President Obama's trip to Ghana to explore strategies to promote "lasting development" in the region, Population Action International (PAI) told the press about the development challenges facing Ghana, including access to reproductive health supplies, HIV prevention and the relationship between population dynamics and civil conflict.

Ghana's fertility rate of 4.4, unchanged since 1998, is among the lowest in the region. Since independence in 1957, Ghana has maintained peace, since its independence in 1957, in a volatile region, with the latest democratic transition of power occurring between late 2008 and early 2009.

However, the unmet need for family planning among married women ages 15-49 is high at 34%. Education and employment for growing numbers of young people is a pressing priority. Ghana is in the "high risk" category for women's sexual and reproductive health. The maternal mortality ratio (MMR), while comparatively low for a West African country, is very high by global standards at 560 deaths per 100,000 births.

PAI said that "achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and Ghana's own development goals, will depend on fulfilling the country's high rate of unmet need for family planning."

The Montpelier Bridge of Vermont Publishes Eight-page Supplement on Population

The Montpelier Bridge of Vermont has outdone most other newspapers in the world by publishing an eight-page supplement on population concerns. At a time when many journalists fail to mention population, even when it is an obvious factor in the issue being discussed, publisher Nat Frothingham deserves your congratulations for his March 19 exploration of the role population growth and size plays in world events. Follow the link above to the population supplement in the Bridge. rw