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

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

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)

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

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)

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

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

Violence against women is a global epidemic with up to 70 percent of women experiencing violence during their lifetime. The most common form of violence is domestic violence with studies suggesting that half of all women who are murdered are killed by a current or former husband or partner. Sexual violence is also widespread with an estimated one in five women becoming a victim of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. Unfortunately sexual violence is often used as a weapon of war against millions of women and girls, some as old as grandmothers and some as young as toddlers.

Violence against girls takes several forms. Every year an estimated two million girls, primarily in developing countries, are forced to undergo female genital mutilation/cutting. FGM/C is any procedure that intentionally alters or injures female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Mostly performed on girls between infancy and age 15, FFM/C is internationally recognized as a violation of human rights.

Girls are also at risk of being married off at an early age, a practice that significantly increases the chances of suffering domestic violence. Child marriage is a recognized violation of human rights, but 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. A child bride is often unable to negotiate safe sex, putting her at a higher risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI) like HIV/AIDS.  She is also more likely to have an early, unsafe pregnancy that sharply increases her risk of dying or suffering from other life-threatening problems, including obstetric fistula.

Another major form of violence against women is trafficking. Every year between 500,000 and two million people are trafficked for many different reasons including prostitution, slavery, forced labor, or servitude, and eighty percent of them are women and girls.

The fact that seventy percent of women in the world experience violence during their lifetime is simply intolerable. During the 16 Days to End Violence against Women it is imperative that men and women around the world speak out against this epidemic of violence.  

So what can Americans do to fight back against this global problem? They can contact their U.S. Senators and urge them to ratify the Convention for the Elimination of All Form of Violence against Women. CEDAW is a 31-year old international human rights treaty that defends women’s rights and gender equality. The convention sets a global definition for discrimination against women and outlines a plan to end that discrimination. The United States is one of just six nations in the U.N. who have refused to ratify CEDAW. The other five countries are Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Palau, and Tonga.  If the United States wants to be a leader in human rights, particularly women’s rights, it is imperative that the U.S. ratify CEDAW and show that world that they will not accept this epidemic of violence against women around the world.

Posted by Jennie Wetter, Program Manager

Here are some highlights of what is being said about world population reaching 7 billion:

Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General, United Nations

“Some say our planet is too crowded.  I say we are seven billion strong. In our increasingly interconnected world, we all have something to give and something to gain by working together.  Let us unite, seven billion strong, in the name of the global common good.”

United Nations Population Fund

“With planning and the right investments in people now … our world of 7 billion can have thriving, sustainable cities, productive labor forces that can fuel economic growth, youth populations that contribute to the well-being of economies and societies, and a generation of older people who are healthy and actively engaged in the social and economic affairs of their communities.”

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund

“When a young woman goes through at least secondary education, her children survive better, physically they mature, emotionally they mature, and because they have education, they are able to make choices. It is not just their ability to make the choice about family planning. It’s also that they have power of their own, which enables them to live a life of dignity and respect.”

Ted Turner, Founder and Chairman of the United Nations Foundation

“The world’s population has more than tripled since I was born in 1938. On Monday, our world’s population is expected to hit the milestone of 7 billion people — up from 2.5 billion in 1950 — with almost all of the growth expected to happen in the cities of less developed countries. This means that the problems the world faced when I was a child are even more urgent now for my grandchildren.

“One of the best ways to ensure that the 7 billionth child born will live in a safe, healthy and sustainable world is to focus on what women want and need. Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute found there are 215 million women worldwide who want the ability to time and space their pregnancies, but do not have access to effective methods of contraception. Women want to be able to deliver children safely and provide for them.

“Universal access to voluntary family planning is a cross-cutting and cost-effective solution to achieving all of the Millennium Development Goals. In addition to reducing maternal mortality, providing voluntary family planning methods and education enables young women to avoid early pregnancy, allows more girls to attend school longer, makes it possible for women to have fewer, healthier children and helps break the inter-generational cycle of poverty. Additionally, it would reduce HIV transmission, empower women to pursue income-generating activities in their communities, and promote environmental sustainability.”

Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Earth Institute at Columbia University

“So the arrival of the 7 billionth person is cause for profound global concern. It carries a challenge: What will it take to maintain a planet in which each person has a chance for a full, productive and prosperous life, and in which the planet’s resources are sustained for future generations? How, in short, can we enjoy ‘sustainable development’ on a very crowded planet?

“The answer has two parts, and each portends a difficult journey over several decades. The first part requires a change of technologies — in farming, energy, industry, transport and building — so that each of us on average is putting less environmental stress on the planet. We will have to make a worldwide transition, for example, from today’s fossil-fuel era, dependent on coal, oil and gas, to an era powered by low-carbon energies such as the sun and wind. That will require an unprecedented degree of global cooperation.

“The second key to sustainable development is the stabilization of the global population. This is already occurring in high-income and even some middle-income countries, as families choose to have one or two children on average. The reduction of fertility rates should be encouraged in the poorer countries as well. Rapid and wholly voluntary reductions of fertility have been and can be achieved in poor countries. Success at reducing high fertility rates depends on keeping girls in school, ensuring that children survive, and providing access to modern family planning and contraceptives.”

Robert Engelman, Executive Director, Worldwatch Institute

“It is precisely because the human population is so large and is growing so fast that we must care how much we as individuals–and nations–are increasingly out of sync with environmental sustainability. The challenge becomes even more with each generation. Fortunately there are ways to practically and humanely both slow population growth and reduce the impacts associated with the growth that occurs.

“Addressing global population growth is not the same thing as ‘controlling population’.  The most direct and immediate way to lower birth rates is to make sure that as high a proportion as possible of pregnancies are intended, by assuring that women can make their own choices about whether and when to bear a child. Simultaneously, we need to rapidly transform our energy, water, and materials consumption through greater use of conservation, efficiency, and green technologies. We shouldn’t think of these as sequential efforts – dealing with consumption first, then waiting for population dynamics to turn around – but rather as simultaneous tasks on multiple fronts.”

 Posted by Jennie Wetter, Program Manager

Luckily Grist, the popular on-line environmental magazine, has found a fun and informative way to break down what 7 billion really means without being overly simplistic. “7 Billion, Unpacked—A Comic”  does a masterful job of laying out why the 7 billion milestone is important and what needs to be done. By focusing on both the population growth expected in the developing world and the much larger impact of population growth in the developed world, the Grist comic talks about population and consumption in a balanced and insightful way.

While recognizing the challenge posed by population growth, it focuses primarily on the successes of the past and the benefits of continuing to expand family planning options for women.  It notes that fertility rates fell from 5 children per woman in 1950 to 2.5 per woman today because of the smart investments that were made in girls’ education, family planning, reproductive health care, and the economic empowerment of women.

The comic notes that birth rates will continue to fall if we make the right investments. First, we must make sure that the 215 million women in the developing world who don’t want to get pregnant—and who are not using a modern method of birth control—get the family planning services and information they need.  Second we must work to reduce unintended pregnancies in the U.S., where nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended.  The comic says we can so by reducing the price of prescription birth control and providing comprehensive sex education, rather than abstinence-only instruction. If we make these investments we will produce smaller and healthier families…and help to save the planet at the same time.

Best of all, the comic tells the reader what he or she can do:

1. Push your leaders to support family planning and abroad. (You can start by signing our Million for a Billion petition to tell Congress and world leaders to boost support for international family planning.)
2. Be conscientious in deciding how many kids to have—no decision you’ll ever make has larger environmental implications.
3. Don’t pressure other people to have kids. Give everyone the space to decide what is right for them.
4. Push for better sex education in schools, and be frank with teens about sex and birth control.
5. Don’t be afraid to talk about population. It’s time to bust through that taboo. (One place to do that is Population 7 Billion, It’s Time to Talk.)

So check out the great comic and then take action!

Posted by Jennie Wetter, Program Manager