Valentine’s Day is for lovers.  And if you really love someone, you really care about his or her health.  So why are so many men sitting on the sidelines as social and religious conservatives work to shut down family planning clinics and limit a women’s access to contraception and other preventive health services?

Good question.  Maybe they think that standing up for women is a job for women, not men.  Or maybe they just don’t realize what’s at stake.  Whatever the reason, it’s time for men to stand up for women and their reproductive health. That’s what ‘real men’ do when the women in their lives are threatened by the Rick Santorums of the world who regard contraception as dangerous, and a woman’s reproductive health as secondary to the need to procreate.  That’s what real men do when family planning clinics are shutting down and when zealots are denying victims of rape and incest the right to emergency contraception.

Come on, men, in the battle for the reproductive health of women, it is “Game on.”  And if you’re not making calls to your federal and state legislators, than you are not in the game.  Maybe you think that women don’t need your help on this one.  If so, you would be wrong.  Dead wrong.  A family planning clinic near you or a woman you love may already be shutting down; several states have slashed funding.  Social conservatives in Congress are bent on denying federal funding to clinics that, in addition to family planning, provide lifesaving breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings.  If you didn’t know that already, you’re not paying attention.

And, men, just in case you are not reading this article, I’m calling on the women in your life to let you know that if you care about them and their reproductive health, you should care enough to get involved.

That’s why the Population Institute is encouraging women to send a special e-Valentine to the men in their lives this year. And the message is very simple:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Men who love women,

Care about their health too.

Every woman, rich or poor, deserves access to family planning services and quality health care. 

Be my Valentine!

Stand up for women and their reproductive health.

If you’re a man, we have an e-Valentine that you can send to the women in your life, letting them know that you are on their side in the fight for reproductive health and rights.  It won’t substitute for flowers or candy, but remember:  it’s the thought that counts.

Posted by Robert J. Walker, President

President Obama today issued a statement outlining a compromise approach to ensuring that women working at religiously affiliated hospitals and universities will be able to get their contraceptive needs covered by health insurance.  In making his announcement, the President made it clear that he was not willing to compromise the health of those women who want access to contraceptives.

According to the President:

Nearly 99 percent of all women have relied on contraception at some point in their lives –- 99 percent.  And yet, more than half of all women between the ages of 18 and 34 have struggled to afford it.  So for all these reasons, we decided to follow the judgment of the nation’s leading medical experts and make sure that free preventive care includes access to free contraceptive care.

Whether you’re a teacher, or a small businesswoman, or a nurse, or a janitor, no woman’s health should depend on who she is or where she works or how much money she makes.  Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health. Period.

While the new rule would allow religious institutions with religious objections to opt-out of covering birth control, the participating insurance company would be required to offer such coverage. The insurance company would also be responsible for contacting the employee and letting them know about the benefit.  Religious-affiliated institutions would not be required to do anything.

This new rule addresses the concerns that were raised by the Catholic Church, but does so without jeopardizing the reproductive health of women.

Thank you, Mr. President, for finding a compromise that did not compromise women’s health.  A woman’s reproductive health should not depend on who she is or where she works or how much money she makes.

Posted by Jennie Wetter, Program Manager

In formulating his decision to make birth control available with no co-pay, President Obama has had to walk a tight rope with women’s health on one side and freedom of religion on the other. This tight rope is proving to be especially precarious with groups on both sides watching closely for any misstep. Luckily for women, the President listened to his own conscience in making his final decision.

In the past few days, however, religious and social conservatives have been fighting back. The Catholic Church and the Republican presidential candidates have been in full attack mode, insisting that the President has launched a “war on religion.”

Conservative political pundits insist that the President has made a political blunder.  But is that right? According to recent polling the answer is NO. A new Public Policy Poll released this week shows 56 percent of voters support the birth control coverage benefit, including 53 percent of Catholic voters, and 62 percent of Catholics who identify themselves as independents. This poll is not alone: the Public Religion Institute also released a poll this week which showed 58 percent of Catholics believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception.

Even though the regulation only applies to religious-affiliated institutions, such as hospitals and schools, and not to the religious institutions themselves, the opponents of the regulation insist that it’s a violation of religious and personal freedoms.  But whose?   What about the nurses, secretaries, janitorial staff, and other employees of all faiths who work at Catholic hospitals or universities and who want contraceptive coverage. What about them? And what about practicing Catholics who disagree with the church’s position on contraception? What about their religious and personal convictions? According to the Guttmacher Institute 98 percent of sexually experienced Catholic women use birth control at some point in their lives.

When you look at these public opinion surveys you realize that President Obama didn’t just choose to stand with the majority of women – he chose to stand with the vast majority of Americans who, regardless of their religious denomination, believe that women should have access to modern methods of birth control.

Later today, the Obama Administration is expected to offer a compromise that is designed to satisfy his critics.  Let’s hope that he doesn’t desert his conscience…or the reproductive health and rights of women.

Posted by Jennie Wetter, Program Manager

The war against women and their reproductive health and rights has taken another bizarre and tragic turn.  The Susan G. Komen Foundation, which has done outstanding work on breast cancer treatment and prevention, has withdrawn the funding it provides to Planned Parenthood for breast exams.  The official explanation that’s been given for the reversal is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation, but speculation is rampant that the real reason is that the new Vice President of Komen, who is strongly anti-abortion, objects to the abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood.

Whatever the real motivation, the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s action will only make it more difficult for women, particularly low-income women, to access the family planning and preventive health care services they need.  Such an outcome is clearly at odds with Komen’s efforts to improve women’s health.  But it is also at odds with those, including the Vice President of Komen, who say they want to reduce the number of abortions being performed in this country.  Shutting down more family clinics will only increase unintended pregnancies and the number of women electing to terminate a pregnancy.

The “anti-choice” movment, it appears, is swiftly evolving into an “anti-contraception” movement.

It’s time for all those who care about reproductive health and rights to make their voices heard.  Let the Susan G. Komen Foundation know how you feel.

Posted by Robert J. Walker, President

The UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability has just released its final report (“Resilient People, Resilient Plant: a future worth choosing“).  The panel, which was chaired by Tarja Halmen, president of Finland, and Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, took an appropriately broad view of sustainability, looking at measures of human development, as well as environmental and natural resource indicators.  And not surprisingly it paints a mixed picture. While highlighting progress with respect to a number  of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it also notes the continued deterioration in many of the resources and biosystems on which continued human progress depends. 

Most importantly, it acknowledges that the current human trajectory is not sustainable, and it warns that, “The signposts are clear: We need to change dramatically, beginning with how we think about our relationship to each other, to future generations, and to the eco-systems that support us….Continuing on the same path will put people and our planet at greatly heightened risk.”

The report makes 56 specific recommendations, a number of which deserve special recognition, including support for expanding family planning and reproductive health options, incorporating sustainability considerations into national strategic planning, creation of a Sustainable Development Index, improvement in gender equity, and the development of  a set of “sustainable development goals” similar to the MDGs.

But perhaps the most noteworthy part of the report is its recognition of the need for a people-centered approach to sustainable development.  The report stresses that we need to empower people to make sustainable choices.  And that certainly applies to the need to empower women to be able to decide the number and spacing of their children. 

Today’s report is a welcome contribution to the growing global debate over sustainability, but the real test will come in June, when world leaders assemble for the Rio+20 Summit.  We need a strong and renewed commitment from world leaders to sustainability.  Without it, it appears unlikely that the human trajectory will change in time to avoid the real life consequences that flow from living unsustainability.  Indeed, we are already struggling with some of those consequences:  climate change, falling water tables, depleted fish stocks, etc.  The question is whether reports such as this one will spur us to move decisively to avoid far more serious damage to people and the planet.

Stay tuned.

 Posted by Robert J. Walker, president of the Population Institute

In a world gone mad, it shouldn’t surprise that North Dakota is now requiring that the health education provided in the state include information on the benefits of abstinence within marriage, not just before marriage. Nor should it come as a surprise that the fiercest anti-abortion advocates would oppose the use of contraceptives. Nor, given all that, should we be surprised to find leading political figures, like Mitt Romney, doing a late in life U-turn on abortion rights and government support for family planning.

But enough is enough. It’s time to halt the assault on women and their reproductive health and rights.

Last year, despite all the high-level Congressional attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics, Congress renewed its support for Title X family planning assistance, rebuffed efforts to slash international family planning assistance, and stopped a campaign to re-impose the global “gag rule” on overseas providers of family planning services.

But with considerably less fanfare, social conservatives have been quietly winning “victories” at the state and local level. The Guttmacher Institute reported earlier this month that a record-setting 92 abortion restrictions were approved last year by the states. In their budget-cutting zeal, several states, including Gov. Perry’s Texas and Gov. Christie’s New Jersey, slashed state-support for family planning clinics: the reproductive health of low-income women be damned.

So what accounts for this sudden resurgence of attacks on abortion rights, family planning, and reproductive health? Has there been a fundamental shift in public opinion? Of course, not. Poll after poll suggests that most Americans still support the reproductive health and rights of women.

What’s different is that the success of the Tea Party movement has opened political doors that have long been closed to hardcore social conservatives. And they are seizing the political moment to push their extremist agenda.

In a representative democracy such as ours, majority views do not always prevail. If it did, America’s gun laws would be a lot tighter. And so would our campaign finance laws. Extremists and special interests, if they attach themselves to the right candidates and the right parties, can leverage their political strength to enact laws that lack popular support, and repeal laws that do have popular support.

But our government, despite its shortcomings, is still a functioning democracy, and, in times such as this, it is important for the majority to make their views and concerns known. It’s time for the women and men who fought so hard to establish reproductive rights in the first place to shake off their complacence: their hard-fought gains are in jeopardy. It’s also time for young adults, who have taken their reproductive rights for granted, to take a stand. It’s time to make your voices heard.

And it doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is. Whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or an independent, your political leaders need to hear from you. There’s nothing carved in stone that says that Republicans must deny women their reproductive rights, including access to contraceptives. There’s nothing in the party’s platform that says that Democrats must deny the “Plan B” pill to minors unless they have a prescription.

Left to their own devices, politicians will often do whatever it takes to get re-elected, even if it means taking a position that is contrary to public opinion or their own principles. So don’t ever leave your political leaders to their own devices: make your opinions and your values known. If you think that Rick Santorum is crazy when he says that states should have the authority to ban contraceptives, call his campaign and leave a message. If you think HHS Secretary Sebelius was “right” in requiring health insurance to cover contraceptives services without a co-pay, but “wrong” in limiting a minor’s access to the Plan B pill, let her know exactly where you stand.

We need a campaign to halt the political assault on women and their reproductive health and rights. And the campaign begins with you.

Posted by Robert J. Walker, President re-posted from the Huffington Post (1/20/12)

For years now, social conservatives have set their sights on overturning Roe v. Wade.  Now, they want to overturn its antecedent, Griswold v. Connecticut, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized a “right to privacy” and struck down an old Connecticut law that banned contraception. 

As I outlined in blogs that I recently wrote for the Huffington Post and CARE2, public comments made by Rick Santorum have exposed what many have long suspected:  many anti-abortion advocates are also anti-contraception. 

After voters in New Hampshire reacted negatively to Santorum’s attack on family planning, Romney and other Republican presidential aspirants have taken steps to distance themselves from Santorum and his comments about Griswold.  But not very far.  In debates this past weekend, Romney opined about the improbability of any state voting to ban family planning, but he didn’t back off his pledge to abolish Title X, which provides low-income women in the U.S. with access to family planning and reproductive health services.  Nor has he changed his mind about a “personhood” amendment that would effectively ban several forms of modern contraceptives:  he’s still for it. 

Rick Perry still trumpets the fact that Texas this year cut state support for family planning clinics by two-third, and he still wants to ban abortions, even in the case of rape or incest.

Only time will tell how far these attacks on contraception and reproductive choice will go, but social conservatives have already succeeded in drastically cutting state support for family planning clinics in states like Texas and New Jersey.

It’s time, in this politically-charged year, for everyone who supports family planning and women’s rights to make their voices heard.  Call the campaigns.  Write a blog or a letter to the editor.  Post something on Facebook.  Tweet about it. Talk to your neighbors. But don’t stay silent.  Not now.

Posted by Robert J. Walker, President

Quietly, without ritual or public fanfare, the Western Black Rhino this year was officially declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.  None are believed left in the wild.

To borrow a phrase from Abraham Lincoln, the world will little note, nor long remember the passage of the Western Black Rhino.  No major news outlet catalogued it among the top 10 or 100 news stories for 2011.  It didn’t even make front page headlines on the day its extinction was officially announced.  After all, it’s not as if we had extinguished the last wild rhino on the face of the planet.

But that day may be coming.  An environmental journalist for the National Geographic reported a few weeks ago that, “It has been a bad year for rhinos in South Africa.”  As of a few weeks ago an estimated 433 rhinos had been killed in 2011, a hundred more than in 2010.  With an estimated 20,000 rhinos now left in South Africa, it’s possible that other rhino species and subspecies will one day follow the Western Black Rhinos, a subspecies, into oblivion.  Asian rhinos are also in jeopardy.

Unfortunately for the rhino, its horns are believed by some to cure or prevent cancer.  Still others believe that it is an aphrodisiac or a cure for gout.  An MSNBC story this week indicates that the “street value of rhinoceros horns has soared to about $65,000 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), making it more expensive than gold, platinum and in many cases cocaine…”

The culprits, of course, are the poachers and the traffickers who are trying to cash in on the rhino horns, and the buyers who support the illegal trade.

The hope is that increased enforcement by game officials in South Africa and elsewhere will eventually curb the poaching and save the rhinos from extinction.  The poachers, however, are strongly motivated and heavily armed.  It’s hard to be very optimistic.

When we read these stories most of us have little or no sympathy for the poachers who prowl South Africa’s border with Mozambique, nor should we, but most of us—unlike many of the poachers—are not struggling desperately to feed our families.  Human economic necessity, as much as greed, may be killing the rhinos.

The larger question that needs to be pondered is not the fate of the rhinos, as important as that it is; it’s what the human species is doing to the planet and to all the creatures that make this planet their home.  For years now, leading biologists have been warning that human activity is triggering the “sixth mass extinction” in the history of the planet and the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago.  By some estimates, we are killing off species at 100 or even 1000 times the natural rate of extinction.  E.O. Wilson, the noted Harvard biologist, warned years ago that if current rates of human destruction of the biosphere are not reduced, one-half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years.

The nations that signed the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity have pledged to reduce the rate of plant and animal extinction, but we are not winning the war against biodiversity loss.  The UN reported last year that there was “no indication of a significant reduction in the rate of decline in biodiversity.”

As inexorably as a comet follows its orbit, we are steadily destroying animal habitats in an effort to fulfill our expanding appetite for food, energy, and natural resources, but unlike the comet that destroyed the dinosaurs, we can change our trajectory.  We can reduce our numbers by making family planning services more widely available to women who want to avoid a pregnancy, we can reduce our ecological footprints by changing our consumption patterns, and we can marshal the resources needed to maintain wildlife preserves.

But will we do so in time to avert an ecological and human disaster?  Not as long as we ignore the impact that human numbers and human material aspirations are having on other living creatures. For many creatures, like the Western Black Rhino, it is already too late.

Farewell, the rhino.

Western Black Rhino

Posted by Robert J. Walker.  Re-posted from the Huffington Post (12.30.2011)

The deadlock over the payroll tax cut extension having been resolved, Congress is now concluding the 1^st session of the 112^th Congress.  From the standpoint of family planning, it could have been worse…a whole lot worse.

When the new Congress was sworn in this past January, family planning advocates knew that it was going to be a rough year. With the change in House leadership, we anticipated that there would be an effort in the House to trim support for international family planning assistance.  And we knew that there would be an attempt to defund UNFPA.   What was feared, but not expected, was that Congressional opponents of family planning would seek to defund the clinics run by Planned Parenthood and to eliminate altogether Title X, the forty-year old program that has done so much to improve reproductive health and expand family planning options for low-income women in this country.

Funding for Planned Parenthood and Title X survived, and so did international family planning assistance. The omnibus appropriations bill approved by Congress this month froze bilateral international family planning assistance at last year’s level of $575 million, but cut funding for the United Nations Population Fund from $40 million to $35 million. While the cut in funding for UNFPA was a setback, House opponents of family planning failed in their efforts to slash the funding levels by 25 percent.  House-led efforts to repeal the global “gag rule” were also rebuffed.

The FY2012 appropriation for international family planning is far below the $1 billion appropriation level recommended by our organization and other members of the International Family Planning Coalition, but given the political opposition that we faced, we can be thankful that steep cuts were not enacted.  Everyone who spoke out this year in support of family planning, domestic and international, should be sure to thank those Congressional leaders who were so instrumental in staving off this year’s attacks.

The battle, of course, is not over.  In a few weeks, Congress will return for the 2^nd Session of the 112^th Congress, and the political tug-of-war will resume.  In the meantime, however, the Population Institute wishes to thank all those organizations and individuals who spoke up this year on behalf of women, family planning, and reproductive health and rights.

Posted by Robert J. Walker, President

Today is World AIDS Day, a day for awareness, commemoration, and celebration.  HIV/AIDS has claimed and affected the lives of millions: between 1981 and 2007, an estimated 25 million people died from the virus and there are an estimated 34 million people living with HIV today.  But this World AIDS Day, the tone is more upbeat and optimistic.

This year’s theme – “Getting to Zero” – signals a push for a time when, in the words of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), there will be “zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths.”  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a speech this past November, called upon the American people to help usher in a time when the world will have an “AIDS-free generation.” While these goals may have seemed extremely far-off or even impossible on the first World AIDS Day in 1988, the UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report 2011 gives cause for optimism.

According to the report, the number of people living with HIV is up 17% from 2001; the number of AIDS-related deaths fell to 1.8 million in 2010 (down from 2.2 million in the mid-2000s); the number of new infections is down 21 percent from the epidemic peak in 1997; and 47 percent (6.6 million) of the estimated 14.2 million people eligible for treatment in low- and middle-income countries accessed lifesaving antiretroviral therapy in 2010.  All are encouraging signs, but as the report points out, there is more work to do.

HIV/AIDS continues to disproportionately affect some populations of the world more than others.  Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, contains only 12 percent of the global population, but has 68 percent of all the people living with HIV.  In 2010, the region accounted for 70 percent of all new HIV infections. With a population projected to climb to over 3 billion by the end of the century, more resources, energy and focus must be directed to sub-Saharan Africa in order to have any chance of “getting to zero.”

Globally, women account for 50 percent of those living with HIV, a number that seems to be holding steady.  In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, the proportions are even higher (59 and 53 percent, respectively).  HIV/AIDS is one of the leading causes of death for women of reproductive age (15-44). In 2008 alone, an estimated 60,000 maternal deaths were attributed to HIV.

The report from UNAIDS calls for more efficient and targeted investment in order to adequately and effectively meet the varying HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention needs around the globe. (International assistance for AIDS response shrank from $8.7 billion in 2009 to $7.6 billion in 2010.) One way to more effectively use available resources is to more fully integrate HIV programs with reproductive health and family planning programs.

Letting these programs operate independently of each other can often result in healthcare gaps, explains the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE): “Women living with HIV may go untreated because their family planning provider does not test for HIV. Others may receive treatment at an HIV clinic, yet face stigma if they seek prenatal care. Girls facing unintended pregnancy may receive prenatal and maternity care, yet no information on contraceptive methods.”

The world has come a long way from the uncertainty and fear felt at the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s: Globally, transmission rates continue to fall, more people are living (and for longer) with HIV, and access to treatment continues to expand. Yet, for all the optimism and hope for an “AIDS-free generation,” much more must be done. So this World AIDS Day, let us dare to hope for our future, but not lose focus on the many challenges that must be overcome to make that dream a reality.

Posted by Christina Daggett, Program Associate