World Population Awareness

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The availability, use, and funding of family planning worldwide has seen a revolution in the last 50 years, dramatically reducing fertility levels and slowing population growth in developing countries. But contraceptive use is still low and need for it high in some of the world's poorest and most populous places.

In the 1970s and 1980s family planning was in the spotlight, but recently not so much recently as as issues such as HIV/AIDS and poverty alleviation. Perhaps its success has led to its recent loss of visibility.

Recently key informants - developing-country program managers, senior staff members of nongovernmental and donor organizations, and prominent researchers - were surveyed in a study supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute of Population and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins University. One key informant in the study said: "When you hesitate to say the words 'family planning,' something is happening. When you say 'reproductive health' and have to be careful, something is happening."

There is a declining sense of urgency about population growth and its consequences; competing health and development priorities; rising political conservatism (especially in the United States); and a lack of international and local leadership. Poverty reduction was cited as the primary focus of current development efforts.

The agenda of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) meeting in Cairo in 1994 emphasized the welfare of individual women, the achievement of their sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender equity. This redefinition of the social problem of population growth in terms of reproductive health, particularly for women, has caused popular consciousness about the problem to ebb, since reproductive health does not carry the same political vitality as a developmental disaster or disease epidemic.

"When reproductive health becomes too big, family planning gets lost. The trouble is that it's no longer a focused program. It's difficult for donors to see, to manage and implement." In 1995, family planning received 55% of total worldwide population-assistance expenditures, while basic research and reproductive health received 18% each and HIV/STIs received 9%. In 2003, HIV/STIs received 47% of total worldwide population-assistance expenditures, while reproductive health received 25%, basic research 15%, and family planning 13%. Compared to the magnitude of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, preventing unintended pregnancies is now perceived internationally as much less compelling and less urgent.

While there was general agreement that collaboration between family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs was appropriate, there seemed to be distinct lack of collaboration between the fields. Young people who used to be attracted to the family planning field when it was seen as a critical social need are reportedly going into fields that are perceived to be more urgent today, such as HIV/AIDS, safe motherhood, and poverty alleviation, while some older, experienced leaders who formerly worked in family planning have moved on. That and lack of funding for advanced training means that leadership in family planning is aging or lacking.

Strong opposition from abortion opponents is also a disincentive to work in the family planning field. Some respondents felt that the international family planning movement was in it's demise, but others felt that the movement would continue with the locus of action shifiting to the developing world in those countries that have major contraceptive needs, a rapidly growing population, and a policy commitment to slowing growth. Others felt that women's motivation to control fertility is so strong (and the social norm of family planning so well established) that contraceptive use will continue to rise no matter what happens to family planning programs.

Some felt the message of family planning could be recast (1) addressing an unfinished agenda of unmet contraceptive need, unwanted fertility, stalled fertility decline, and shortages of contraceptive supplies; (2) highlighting family planning's benefits for reducing abortion and improving women's status and health; and (3) demonstrating family planning's relevance in reducing social inequity. Many saw the risks of increased poverty, poor health, and higher mortality as a result of high fertility and population growth rates.

"The population theme is both a threat and an opportunity. It needs to be better utilized, not for Malthusian reasons, but in order to rise above poverty," said one respondent.

Last week the 46th session of the Commission on Population and Development concluded at U.N. headquarters. 45 member nations participated. The five-day session was described as fraught with tension and disagreement because most of the states were "concerned about the economic implications of migration, looking at the effects of remittances," said Mohammad Zia-ur-Rehman, chief executive of leading Pakistani NGO Awaz Foundation. He said the connection between health and migration was frequently overlooked. "Many member states are less interested in highlighting issues related to particularly HIV/AIDS and overall sexual and reproductive health rights and gender identity issues and how these can particularly affect migrants," he continued.

The global remittance flows of migration were an estimated $534 billion in 2012, although the U.N. estimates that twice this amount could have been transferred informally.

In October a high-level dialogue on migration and development will be held that will help lay the foundation for how migration will be incorporated into the post-2015 agenda.

The number of internagional migrants reached 214 million in 2010, up from 155 million in 1990, according to U.N. figures.

About half of today's international migrants are women, an extremely vulnerable group, unlikely to receive access to the social and health protections that they need from gender-based violence, unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Member states from South Asia and some Arab nations like Qatar, as well as Nigeria and the Vatican, opposed the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health language in a consensus agreement.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, works to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. Your support today will help improve and save lives in the 150 countries around the world where UNFPA operates.

Enabling women to control the number and spacing of their children is essential to reducing maternal deaths and human misery.

Over 200 million women, mostly in the least developed countries, want to use modern family planning methods but can't access them, facing cultural barriers or family resistance, or not having access to contraceptives, or there is a lack of information or trained workers to give advice.

In London in July a family planning summit is being co-hosted by the UK government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where an initiative will be planned to tackle the estimated $3.6bn (£2.3bn) annual shortfall in investment. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is supporting the initiative so that it can gain traction and support among other donors and UN member countries.

The summit's aim is to mobilise the political will and extra resources needed to give 120 million more women access to family planning by 2020. This ambitious target is one that is desperately needed. Hundreds of thousands of women continue to die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. Without new urgency and impetus, many developing countries will not only fail to meet the MDG target to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015 but for decades to come. This would be a betrayal of the most vulnerable people and communities on our planet and an affront to our sense of justice.

For every mother who dies, 20 more suffer from chronic ill health and disability. Uncontrolled pregnancy has a much wider impact on the life chances of women and their children - and the health and strength of their communities.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with the vote 23 Republicans to 17 Democrats.

The Huffington Post said, "If the U.S were to give $50 million to the UNFPA in 2012" it "could prevent 7,000 maternal and newborn deaths, provide surgeries to 10,000 women afflicted by an obstetric fistula, and offer contraception to about 1 million couples who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it."

Ranking Member Howard Berman (D-CA) stated, "Tragically, the bill takes aim at poor women and children in the developing world - women and children who all too often suffer from the effects of disease, war, rape, and a host of absolutely horrid conditions that few of us can even begin to imagine. Rather than helping these desperate people - as UNFPA seeks to do - the legislation makes them pawns in a debate over social issues that often seems divorced from reality."

House Republicans claim that their desire to defund the UNFPA stems from the organization's support of China's one-child policy, which requires women obtain abortions and sterilization. However, Sarah Craven, chief of the Washington branch of the UNFPA, denied these claims, stating, "Not a dime of U.S, money goes to China, and not one dime goes to abortion." An investigation conducted by the State Department, which found "no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization," supports Craven's assertion.

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.

A senior UN official urged countries to increase social investment and redouble efforts for an international population agenda. The financial crisis threatens to push 200 million people back into poverty. The financial crisis is threatening to wipe out progress in improving health and reducing poverty.

Countries must put people first and the long- term well-being of the majority over the short-term interests of a few.

Increase social investment and redouble efforts for the ICPD agenda by investing in women, youth and migrants.

Established in 1946, UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) is an international agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity.

Dear Chairwoman Granger and Ranking Member Lowey:

We write to urge your support for international family planning and reproductive health programs in the FY 2014 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations bill. We respectfully request that international family planning and reproductive health programs be funded at least at the President's Budget request of $635.4 million, including $37 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

We believe this would be an important step toward investing $1 billion annually in family planning and reproductive health in developing countries. This level of funding would meet the U.S. share of the global need for these critical programs, which are cost-effective, save lives and support broader diplomatic, development and national security priorities. In addition, any increased investments in international family planning and reproductive health will help rectify the disproportionate cuts this program has faced in the last several years in addition to the impact of sequestration. Based on an analysis of the powerful impact of U.S. investment in family planning and reproductive health overseas by the Guttmacher Institute, the effects of the sequester could mean:

* 1.6 million women denied access to contraceptive services and supplies

* 460,000 additional unintended pregnancies

* 215,000 additional unplanned births

* 215,000 additional abortions (of which 153,000 are unsafe)

* 1,225 maternal deaths

* 6,140 more children will lose their mothers

Our nation's investment in international family planning has had a significant sustained impact. U.S. assistance in FY 2012 helped prevent 9.4 million unintended pregnancies, 4 million abortions, 96,000 children from losing their mothers and 22,000 women from dying. These investments are also highly cost-effective. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has found that in Zambia, for example, one dollar invested in family planning saves four dollars in other development areas.

Despite this investment, every year 291,000 women die from largely preventable complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. Today, at least 222 million women in the developing world would like to prevent or delay pregnancy but lack access to safe, effective contraception; this demand is projected to increase by 40% over the next 15 years. For the health of women around the world, we firmly support international family planning programs and urge you to provide this level of funding in the FY 2014 Appropriations Bill.

Signed by 96 members of Congress

Anna has five children, and wants to plan her family, but her mother-in-law, said she didn't have enough children.

Victoria Marijani, the Program Manager for Reproductive Health Services at PSI Tanzania said "There are lots of Annas who have barriers and cannot access services."

Population Action International was represented by President Suzanne Ehlers at a Senate briefing which included Marijani as well as Ellen Starbird, the new Director of Office of Population and Reproductive Health at USAID; and Harvard economist David Canning, who co-authored the Lancet article "The Economic Consequences of Reproductive Health and Family Planning." The focus was providing women everywhere with the family planning services they want, and the potential impact that can have.

“Development is a best buy," Ehlers said. “Let's not forget it, and let's…get that message in front of those who, for whatever reason, haven't heard it for the past 30 years. Emphasis on family planning, and women's sexual and reproductive health, is completely a multiplier investment for nations."

Our aid to international family planning programs is facing devastating cuts due to the sequester. A 5.3% cut to our international family planning programs would mean:

*1.68 million women denied access to contraceptive services & supplies,

*485,000 additional unintended pregnancies,

*226,000 additional abortions (of which 162,000 will be unsafe),

*1,292 maternal deaths, and

*6,460 children losing their mothers.

Instead of this kind of mindless slashing of funds, we need to increase our investment in family planning programs overseas. It will bring huge returns in terms of improved global health, expanded economic empowerment of women, increased educational opportunities for girls, protection of resources and greater political stability.

Please act quickly to stop the disastrous cuts the sequester will bring.

Since 1998, PAI has taken eight Members of Congress and over 70 staff members to Africa, Asia, and South America, showing Members of Congress and their staff, donors, and advocates the need for and value of international family planning and reproductive health programs. This trip also expands upon a more recent PAI initiative to galvanize new voices in target U.S. Congressional districts to support the U.S. international family planning/reproductive health program and draw linkages between domestic and international choice issues.

Peru has extremely high rates of teen pregnancy and recently the Peruvian courts declared unconstitutional a law which made sex illegal for people under eighteen. This law had made it illegal for a teen to purchase or receive information about condoms or contraceptives.

Also Peru's has "graduated" from USAID's family planning program now that its economy has improved and it is now a middle income country and its government can provide access to contraceptives and reproductive health care. With a long history of underfunding and repeated attempts in the last U.S. Congress to cut funding for international family planning programs, USAID is left to make tough decisions on where to invest its inadequate resources.

Many worry that politics and a lack of solid health infrastructure will cause setbacks in the gains made with USAID'S support. Inequalities still exist between rural and urban, poor and rich, and educated and uneducated women.

PAI believes that "seeing is believing" and are excited to continue to work with all of our trip participants and partners to advance the funding and policy needed to expand access to family planning and reproductive health services worldwide.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed a bipartisan International Affairs Budget, nearly unanimously, that provides critical funding for foreign assistance in key areas. By contrast, the House is considering a spending plan that calls for significantly less funding for the International Affairs Budget, particularly for poverty-focused programs. InterAction and our members are urging Members of Congress to support the Senate funding levels in all budget negotiations. The difference in spending will quite literally mean the difference between lives saved or lives lost. Contact your elected officials and tell others to do the same. What Senate-level funding for the International Affairs Budget would mean

For super storms like Sandy, giant floodgates might be part of a long-term solution, but we need to find others that address the looming consequences of climate change, and recognize that family planning is part of the mix.

According to the NOAA last year the U.S. suffered a record 14 weather events, each costing at least $1 billion in damage. And every year, more than 80 million people join our human family. That's like adding another New Jersey every six weeks.

Since 1800, world population has grown sevenfold, while per capita CO2 emissions have increased 150 times. This multiplies out to about 1,100 times as much emissions.

Residents of the African nation of Chad have about six children each, yet their annual per capita carbon emissions are less than 1% of those of the average American. It would be unfair to blame climate change on people in less developed nations, but if each of us living in a highly developed country reduced our carbon footprint by 40% over 40 years, all of that would be cancelled by our present population growth rates alone.

And that doesn't even take into account the fact that emissions will rise dramatically if and when billions of people are able to escape from poverty.

In the poorest places on earth most people live on less than $2 a day and lack access to clean water and basic sanitation, but many of these would like to have central air conditioning, cars, and air travel to other continents. All of these luxuries will increase per capita emissions.

We must cut our own emissions even as emissions of the poorest people increase to a level that yields a decent quality of life. To insure that the reduction of emissions in the developed countries is not cancelled by increases from the developing world, we must slow the growth rate of our human family.

Over 222 million women in developing nations do not want another child right away or not at all, yet they are unable to prevent pregnancy because of a host of obstacles, such as lack of information about modern contraception and cost, or misinformation about side effects of birth control methods, including the false notion that they lead to sterility. In many societies, women - especially young brides - have no power over their own lives because their husbands, clerics or mothers-in-law make their decisions for them. Women who do not procreate may suffer violent consequences.

If each American were to invest one additional dollar per year in awareness-raising and education campaigns, we could help break down these barriers in partnership with other nations. This would amount to one billion dollars per year.

Last summer, at the London Summit on Family Planning, donor countries and foundations together pledged $2.6 billion to make family planning available to 120 million women in developing countries with unmet needs by 2020. Developing countries themselves also pledged to increase support. But a report, The State of World Population 2012, recently published by the UNFPA says that an additional $4.1 billion in funding is needed each year to address current needs and those of the growing youth population, and that making voluntary family planning available to everyone in developing countries would reduce costs for maternal and newborn health care by $11.3 billion annually.

One third of the growth of Asian "tiger" economies is attributed to a demographic shift in which the number of income-generating adults was higher than those who depended on them for support. This shift was a consequence of family planning and brought increased productivity, leading to economic development in the region.

In one example, it was predicted that if the fertility rate fell by just one child per woman in Nigeria in the next 20 years, the country's economy would grow by at least $30 billion. On the other hand, the costs of ignoring the right to family planning include poverty, exclusion, poor health and gender inequality. In the US, the report showed that teenage motherhood reduces a girl's chances of obtaining a high school diploma by up to 10%.

By enabling individuals to choose the number and spacing of their children, family planning has allowed women, and their children, to live healthier, longer lives. If an additional 120 million obtained access to family planning, the report estimates 3 million fewer babies would die in their first year of life.

UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin said "Not only does the ability for a couple to choose when and how many children to have help lift nations out of poverty, but it is also one of the most effective means of empowering women. Women who use contraception are generally healthier, better educated, more empowered in their households and communities and more economically productive. Women's increased labour-force participation boosts nations' economies."

The report says that governments and communities have the responsibility to protect the right to family planning for women across the spectrum, including those who are young or unmarried.

While financial resources for family planning have declined, contraceptive prevalence has increased globally by only 0.1% per year over the last few years.

In addition to asking for funding, the report also calls on governments and leaders to:

*Take or reinforce a rights-based approach to family planning

*Secure an emphasis on family planning in the global sustainable development agenda that will follow the Millennium Development Goals in 2015

*Ensure equality by focusing on specific excluded groups

Dr. Osotimehin said: "The pledge we made in July in London to increase access to family planning will improve the lives of millions and will each year help avert 200,000 maternal deaths. As we approach the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, I call on all leaders to build on this momentum, close the funding gap, and make voluntary family planning a development priority."

85 members of the U.S. House of Representatives urge the President to provide significant increases for family planning programs around the world and in the United States when he submits his budget to Congress. Click the link to see if your representative signed the letter.

The President's proposed foreign aid budget request of $58.8 billion for the State Department and foreign assistance, has met with opposition in Congress, and the President's proposed increase in international family planning assistance may also be in danger.

The Senate Budget Committee, on April 22, adopted a budget resolution for fiscal year 2011 that trims the President's budget request by 7%. If upheld by the House and Senate, it could translate into a comparable size reduction in the $715.7 million proposed by the President for international family planning assistance, which is contained in the international affairs budget.

Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Christopher Bond (R-MO), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) are trying to build support in the Senate for fully funding the President's budget for international affairs, and asking their fellow Senators to join them in signing a letter to Appropriations Committee Chair Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-MS), urging them fully fund the President's $58.8 billion request in the all-important 302(b) appropriation allocations.

28 Senators have signed onto the bipartisan Kerry-Lugar-Durbin-Bond-Feinstein letter in support of fully funding the FY2011 International Affairs Budget - very encouraging, but several more co-signers are needed before the letter closes on Wednesday.

You can help by calling the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121 if one or both of your Senators appears in this list: Mark Begich (D-AK), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Roland Burris (D-IL), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Bob Corker (R-TN), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Al Franken (D-MN), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Ted Kaufman (D-DE), Herbert Kohl (D-WI), George LeMieux (R-FL), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Patty Murray (D-WA), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jim Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), John Rockefeller (D-WV), Bernard Sanders (I-VT), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), George Voinovich (R-OH), Mark Warner (D-VA)

You could say something like: "I'm a constituent, and I am calling to ask Senator ________ to sign the Kerry -Lugar-Durbin-Bond-Feinstein letter on foreign assistance. It's important that we provide full funding for international family planning assistance."

Immediate Action is needed in support of Lugar Amendment to the Budget resolution for FY2004. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Richard Lugar (R-IN) has filed an amendment (S. Amdt. 280) yesterday to restore $1.1 billion proposal to be stripped from the Administration's request for the
FY2004 International Affairs Budget. This includes resources for important international family planning programs as well as for the President's new
initiatives on the Millennium Challenge Account and HIV/AIDS. For details on how you can help, click on the title of this article above.

The House International Relations Committee has endorsed HIV/AIDS legislation which exceeds that which President Bush asked for in his State of the Union message. It authorizes $15 billion for overseas HIV/AIDS, $3 billion a year for five years, and earmarks a greater percentage for the global AIDS fund. Most of the HIV/AIDS money will go to countries in sub-Saharan Africa where condoms are an important part of slowing HIV. The Bush White House has greenlighted inclusion of condoms in the bill.

Writing a letter to your lawmaker, letters to the editor, or even better, lobbying, are two of the more effective ways to influence policy makers in matters of funding for foreign family planning clinics, contraceptives with health insurance, and other important population and sustainability solutions.

There are 6.7 million pregnancies in the U.S. each year About half of these are unintended. Births resulting from unintended pregnancies have been linked to adverse maternal and child health outcomes and myriad social and economic challenges, including costs to the federal and state governments of $11 billion (2006).

The Guttmacher Institute has launched a new tool that gives the incidence and outcomes of unintended pregnancy in each state, including the proportion of all pregnancies that are unintended; the rates of unintended pregnancy; the proportions of unintended pregnancies that result in births and abortions; and the proportion of all births resulting from unintended pregnancy;

Also given is the public cost of unintended pregnancy in each state, and the impact in each state of publicly funded family planning services.

Adam Sonfield, senior public policy associate at Guttmacher, said of the fact sheets: "They are a comprehensive resource that documents the significant state-level benefits of investing in publicly funded family planning services, both in helping women avert unintended pregnancies, births and abortions, and generating considerable savings to the federal and state governments."

Is your lawmaker -

• For US foreign funding of family planning clinics ask if your lawmaker will co-sponsor a bill funding family planning
• Against family planning -
  point out that many of his constituents are using family planning and wouldn't he want the same for the poor families in other countries.
• Doesn't think overpopulation is a problem - Give him facts and figures about population and tell him about the worldwide impacts or point out the economic benefits of limiting family size. Explain that, while birth rates are falling, they are not falling fast enough, and the number of women of childbearing age is at an all-time high.
• Against abortion - Check out the subject at and tell him that family planning prevents abortions.

Writing a letter to your lawmaker, letters to the editor, or even better, lobbying, are two of the more effective ways to influence policy makers in matters of funding for foreign family planning clinics, contraceptives with health insurance, and other important population and sustainability solutions.

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, ...

For 20 years the Holy See has claimed statehood at the UN, which grants it special status. Its dogmatic views on the provision of reproductive healthcare services and the family place it squarely in the way of policymakers who wish to guarantee rights and provide services to people around the world.

The Holy See's impact has used its prestige and resources to stymie attempts at the United Nations, state and local levels to provide comprehensive reproductive healthcare services. Though cloaked in language that seems to respect women's needs, without access to abortion, contraception and other basic services people die, and value systems that undermine women's well-being are fostered. Other legislative bodies have been affected as well. In 2002 that the EU adopted language about reproductive health that made no reference to abortion because of the UN Programme of Action the Holy See helped shape in 1994.

The dual nature of the papacy started with Pope Leo IX in 1054 when it was perceived that the Emperor Constantine I transferred the western part of the Roman Empire to the pope. In 1095, Pope Urban II used his influence to enlist most of Western Europe in a war to capture the Holy Land that would bring bloodshed to every region that stood in the way.

In 1859 French writer Edmond About described a pope who presided over a territory where the educational system was poor; the force of law practically dysfunctional; the tax system in disarray; and whose inhabitants were "all crying out loudly against him." About said this was an odd social structure where "the legislative, executive, and judicial powers are united, confounded and jumbled together in one and agreement established the Holy See within the area of Vatican City, the size of which has been described as "about the size of an 18-hole golf course".

The Holy See began participating in international organizations such as the World Health Organization and in 1964 joined the UN as a Nonmember State Permanent Observer, a designation it once shared only with Switzerland, which became a full member in 2002. This elevated status grants the Holy See much more direct access to UN proceedings than other religions participating as nongovernmental organizations. Since 2004, the Holy See has had some of the privileges of a member state at the UN, such as being able to speak, reply and circulate documents in the General Assembly.

The 108.7-acre Vatican City has a small population where many residents never obtain citizenship, and those that do have their citizenship revoked upon termination of their employment. All member states have a definite population, but when the Holy See decides to speak as a religion, its numbers jump from 1,000 Vatican City residents to 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide.

In 1964 UN Secretary-General U Thant based his decision to allow the Holy See's entrance as a permanent observer on the fact that it enjoyed diplomatic recognition by most UN member states. As powerful as it is, diplomatic recognition can be revoked in certain situations: many countries withdrew recognition from South Africa towards the end of the apartheid era.

One of the United Nations' foundational principles, the Rule of Law, which is embedded in the UN Charter, demands that all states are accountable to the same laws and human rights norms. In other words, states around the world should all follow the same rules when dealing with each other and at the UN, because they are all basically the same.

At the United Nations, however, the Holy See signs treaties as a state, but does not bind itself to those treaties. The Holy See signed on to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but did not submit a mandatory progress report due on the Rights of the Child in 1997, and although it was supposed to be released last year, the document is now 15 years late.

The Holy See has a ready exit if it is called to account: it can face its critics as a religion which lets the Holy See claim almost anything to be true.

Where the 1995 Beijing Declaration pledged to ensure the rights of women and girls as "inalienable," the Holy See rejected this very premise, saying, "Surely this international gathering could have done more for women and girls than to leave them alone with their rights!"

In 1994 the Vatican sent special envoys to Tehran and Tripoli to drum up support for the Holy See's planned anti-reproductive rights stance at the forthcoming International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. Pope John Paul II also sent letters to every head of state worldwide warning that the wrong policy decisions at the conference could bring about an impending “moral decline resulting in a serious setback for humanity."

The Holy See's many objections at Cairo delayed the conference for a full week in order to exclude abortion from the definition of "reproductive health." Instead of a commitment to safe abortion access for all women, the resulting Programme of Action merely stated, “In circumstances in which abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe."

The Holy See declared in 1989 that it "interprets the phrase ‘Family planning education and services' … to mean only those methods of family planning which it considers morally acceptable, that is, the natural methods of family planning."

When the Holy See objected in 1999 to the UN's provision of emergency contraception to rape victims in Kosovo, there was an international outcry. Reflecting in 2008 on the early years of the UN aids response, Adrienne Germain, former president of the International Women's Health Coalition, said, "I remember when people literally gasped when the Holy See said no condoms for AIDS."

Holy See has made claims that a rights-based reproductive health model turns women into victims, or that abortion has been documented to harm a woman's mental health. Faced with allegations like these, other UN actors must choose between refuting each and every claim or moving forward. As a result, falsehoods like "as a matter of scientific fact, a new human life begins at conception," were entered in the minutes of a 2011 General Assembly session.

Many people think the Catholic faith can be defended even better at the UN as an NGO. it would be a powerful gesture for the Holy See to voluntarily join the ranks of the other religions as an NGO, and concentrate on partnering with other religious leaders to bring solace to a troubled world. Such a move would probably do wonders for the Holy See's public image, so badly in need of repair after the sexual abuse crisis and the recent clampdown on dissent.

It's hard to justify Pope Paul VI's eloquence before the General Assembly in 1965—when he said that as representative of the Holy See he was at the United Nations as an "expert in humanity."

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.

Economists have recognized linkages between population and economic development. Yet, the attention given to these linkages has varied enormously over time. Looking over recent decades, it is hard to escape two conclusions: (a) politics plays a more important role than academic discourse and this influences the attention given to population matters; and (b) fads are almost as ubiquitous in international thinking on development issues as they are in issues of dress, eating habits and youth culture. The role of politics in influencing debate on population is seen at the series of UN population conferences. Each was diverted by unexpected developments.

At Bucharest in 1972, there was an ideological confrontation over the structure of the international economic order; China and India, both of which had strong domestic programmes to control population growth, were in denial such programmes were needed, while the US was seen as the key proponent of population programmes and the key opponent of a new international economic order, and most developing countries were loath to be seen as lining up on its side. In 1984 at the Mexico City conference, officials in the United States Government having population responsibilities and lead by a "right to life" spokesman, promoted a line that the relationship between population growth and economic development is not necessarily a negative one and that what is needed is economic reform consistent with a market economy. At Cairo, the networking skills of feminist groups managed to upstage the efforts of the UN, through prior population conferences and group meetings, and to deliver an outcome that differed widely from original expectations. These unexpected political intrusions served to reduce attention to many items that deserved more debate. They did not prevent the emergence of valuable documents, which helped to guide population policy over the decade that followed each of them. At the Population Conference in Bangkok in 2002, tactics by one delegation failed to shake the unity of the Asian and Pacific delegations. We have witnessed a succession of emphases that have demanded priority attention. Environment, sustainable development, gender equity, refugees, human trafficking, HIV, poverty reduction all important in their own right, but turning into the issue of the moment in the hallways of international conferences and meetings of international agencies. Note that population was ignored at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, despite evidence of important linkages between population and environmental issues. At the time that in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines devastating flooding and landslides have been blamed on deforestation, we need a discussion of the causes of illegal logging and population pressures on vegetation cover through expansion of settlements and changing patterns of shifting cultivation. The sustainability of the world's megacities also needs study. Some analysts conclude that the rapid growth of megacities has ended and are the result of ignoring the growth outside metropolitan boundaries. This neglect of the population factor in sustainable development comes when the consensus on the negative impacts of high fertility are widely recognized among academic economists, and new studies of population waves on development are yielding interesting findings. What can explain this neglect of population issues in the broader development community? Perhaps one problem is the academic and policy community that operates on the premise that demography is central to understanding development issues. This group finds it hard to carry much weight in the general community, now that the specter of the population explosion has receded. The UN show a leveling off of world population by the middle of this century, so for many the time has come to move from population to serious issues. The fact that global population size could grow by another 40% to 50% before levelling off no longer seems to cause much concern and in the Asian and Pacific region ignores two key points: (a) population is a factor in development when it is stabilizing and promising to implode because of very low fertility; and there is a wide range in population circumstances throughout Asia. Planners in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore are preoccupied with how to deal with declining labour forces and rapidly ageing populations. This does not negate the relevance of the issues for Pakistan, where fertility is falling to moderate levels, and the Philippines, where fertility is declining only very slowly amd these trends portend massive increases in population, which these countries appear ill-equipped to deal with. The forces that have blocked effective family planning in these two countries is weak government, corruption and social injustices that are preventing economic development. The counter argument is that rapid population growth exacerbates problems of weak government, corruption and social injustice. It is the interplay of population trends fertility, mortality and migration that is crucial economic, social development and social cohesion. The migration factor is uppermost in Europe, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore, as they contemplate the population future. Perhaps those of us who have the conviction that populations matter in development and the training to demonstrate that this is so, are not engaging in enough dialogue with those who are preoccupied with globalization, poverty, injustice and environmental issues.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In July the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on July 24 upheld a 2005 South Dakota law requiring physicians to advise women seeking abortions that they face an increased risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts if they obtain the procedure. This requirement is unsupported by the evidence, and is one of the many hurdles states have enacted designed to dissuade women from obtaining an abortion. While these measures are labeled "informed consent" laws, on the contrary they undermine the fundamental ethical principle of informed consent by requiring health care providers to provide misinformation to their patients.

In December 2011, a systematic review commissioned and published by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (funded by the UK Department of Health, and carried out by the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists) concluded that "rates of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth," that an "unwanted pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of mental health problems" and that the "most reliable predictor of post-abortion mental health problems was having a history of mental health problems before the abortion."

This was backed up by an August 2008 report by the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion which concluded that "the best scientific evidence indicates that the relative risk of mental health problems among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy is no greater if they have an elective first-trimester abortion than if they deliver the pregnancy."

The court decision on the South Dakota law appears to rely heavily on the work of Priscilla Coleman, a professor of human development and family studies at Bowling Green University. However, Coleman's work has repeatedly come under strong criticism by respected members of the scientific community, including the study of March 2012 by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the Guttmacher Institute which determined that a 2009 study by Coleman and colleagues purporting to show a causal link between abortion and subsequent mental health problems has fundamental analytical errors that render its conclusions invalid. Most egregiously, the study did not distinguish between mental health outcomes that occurred before abortions and those that occurred afterward, but still claimed to show a causal link between abortion and mental health disorders.

Laws such as South Dakota's, which are grounded in spurious research rather than the best-available scientific evidence, not only represent a gross intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship, they also endanger the health and rights of women, by intentionally misinforming them on important medical matters.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

Suzanne York of HowMany.org comments on an editorial which claims that a Mitt Romney administration would harm women's reproductive rights both domestically and internationally. Not only will Americans lose access to free contraceptives under Obamacare's mandate to provide birth control without a co-pay. Many women and their families in developing countries will suffer.

Scroll several articles down from here and you will find an article from the Huffington Post, "Global Gag Rule's Return Would Threaten Women Worldwide".

York says: "Apparently Mr. Romney doesn't care that 222 million women in developing countries want access to family planning services but do not have that access, and doesn't understand that helping them is both critical to helping them… and helping provide a better future for all of us on the planet."

She tells us of the high-level London Summit on Family Planning in July where donors pledged to provide $2.6 billion over the next eight years to help the world's 120 million poorest women gain access to voluntary family planning information, services and supplies by 2020. More than 20 developing countries made commitments to increase spending on family planning.

The U.S. supplied $610 in 2012 toward international family planning and reproductive health programs, which, according to the Guttmacher Institute, makes it possible for: 31.6 million women and couples to receive contraceptive services and supplies; 9.4 million unintended pregnancies and 4.1 million unplanned births to be averted; 4 million induced abortions to be averted (3 million of them unsafe); 22,000 maternal deaths to be averted; and 96,000 fewer children to lose their mothers.

$35 million of the U.S. money went to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), whose mission is to"reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect."

Romney and other conservatives want to cut off U.S. funding for the UNFPA.

UNFPA's programs include health care for women refugees, where one in five women are likely to be pregnant. Female refugees are often exposed to trauma, malnutrition, disease and violence. They desperately need maternal health services and proper clinics for childbirth. Another program educates married men on reproductive health in order to improve access to maternal and newborn health services. Well-respected men in the community are brought together to discuss concerns centered on reproductive health. 137 such schools have been established in southern Niger.

Romney as president would likely cut U.S. foreign assistance, which at present comprises only about 1% of the U.S. federal budget, and more likely he will especially cut aid to international family planning and reproductive health programs.

Political Research Associates have released a report, Colonizing African Values: How the U.S. Christian Right is Transforming Sexual Politics in Africa, which documents the U.S. Christian Right's attempts to push an ideology hostile to reproductive and LGBT rights on sub-Saharan African countries.

For example, in Tanzania in 2008, billboards depicted a "Faithful Condom User" as a skeleton in a blatant attempt to discourage condom use as an effective HIV prevention method. The billboard's sponsor was Human Life International (HLI), a Roman Catholic organization group based in the United States.

HLI is staunchly opposed to contraception, abortion, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, sex education, and homosexuality. Another U.S. Christian Right group peddling corrosive reproductive politics in Africa is Family Watch International, a small Arizona-based group, which condemns the United Nations' efforts to support family planning services and reproductive health options for women. One of the groups claims is that vaccine distribution is really a secret sterilization program designed to destroy the African family.

Abortion is already illegal in most African countries, bans first passed decades ago under colonial governments, and even where there are some exceptions the complications of the law often drive women to obtain illegal and dangerous procedures, such as "drinking surf (washing powder), using wires, and poisonous herbs.

Groups like Pat Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice, led by Jay Sekulow (a Romney campaign favorite) and HLI are pushing for even stricter laws and constitutional bans. However, when it comes to enforcement, both police and individuals seem to shy away from invading the "personal" decisions of women who seek abortions, even when they disapprove of the procedure.

You can view the executive summary of this report at ##http://www.publiceye.org/Reports/Colonizing_African_Values/Pdfs/PRA.Colonizing.Exec.Summ.pdf

The full report is also available here (PDF): ##http://www.publiceye.org/Reports/Colonizing_African_Values/Pdfs/Colonizing.African.Values.PRA.pdf

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The U.S. government has awarded a three-year Title X family planning grant to the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas (WHFPT), a network of individual providers and clinics that specialize in reproductive health care. The Texas Department of State Health Services was the administrator of the grant until Republican Gov. Rick Perry and conservative legislators decimated the state's existing family planning infrastructure in the 2011 legislative session and reserved the bulk of family planning funds for inefficient, unspecialized primary care clinics in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood. Texas officials consider Planned Parenthood an abortion "affiliate," despite the fact that no Texas Planned Parenthood clinics that receive any public funds perform abortions.

Planned Parenthood clinics are among the health-care providers that applied for the grant under the WHFPT, a group of 34 contractors at 121 clinics statewide.

With the estimated $13 million each year WHFPT was awarded, WHFPT CEO Fran Hagerty anticipates the coalition seeing almost double the number of clients that the Department of State Health Services had projected; she conservatively estimates 160,000 clients served annually, compared to the state's 65,000. WHFPT does not have to adhere to the state's inefficient, tiered funding structure, which was created specifically to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving funds.

The Center for Biological Diversity commissioned a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling.

64% said that, with the human population expected to hit 10 billion by 2050, wildlife will be adversely affected.

61% said they are already concerned about the rate at which wildlife is disappearing.

57% believe human population growth is "significantly impacting the disappearance of wildlife."

The results on consumption and on climate change suggest people agree that population/consumption should be part of any comprehensive solution to climate change.

57% said they "strongly agreed" or "somewhat agreed" that population growth is making climate change worse.

56% said either stabilizing or reducing population growth would make climate change easier to solve.

48% said the average American consumes too many natural resources, while only 17% said we are consuming too few.

60% said our society has a "moral responsibility" to address wildlife extinctions in the face of a growing population.

54% agree that stabilizing population growth will help protect the environment.

59% said addressing the effects of population growth is an important environmental issue.

The next step is making it crystal-clear to decision-makers that Americans want something done now -- that this issue should be a national priority and part of any discussion about saving the world we live in.

This story was covered by Ken Weiss of the Los Angeles Times.

A group of House Republicans recently introduced a bill to repeal the birth control benefit. Two weeks ago, a group of 11 politicians chose to stand with companies that have sued for the right to deny employees birth control coverage. These businesses think that bosses should get to control the health care choices of their employees. These are part of an orchestrated attack on women's access to birth control, despite the fact that 70% of Americans support insurance companies covering birth control without co-pays.

No company, no boss, should get to control the health care choices of their employees. No woman should have to ask her boss for permission to use birth control. Women should be able to make their own decisions about their health and their bodies.

While you stand with the companies who want to take this coverage away, I stand with the 70% of Americans who agree with the law, and who believe insurance companies should cover this basic benefit. When women have the power to protect their health, to plan their families, to make their own medical decisions, we all benefit.

Guaranteeing access to affordable birth control means fewer unintended pregnancies, healthier families, and women more in control of their futures. So let's show these members of Congress we won't back down when it comes to protecting birth control access. Add your name today.

In U.S. state capitols over the course of the year 2012, 42 states and the District of Columbia enacted 122 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. One-third of these new provisions, 43 in 19 states, sought to restrict access to abortion services. Although 2011 saw 92 abortion restrictions enacted, 2012 saw the second highest annual number of new abortion restrictions. This analysis refers to reproductive health and rights-related "provisions," rather than bills or laws, since bills introduced and eventually enacted contain multiple relevant provisions. During the contentious presidential campaign -- in which abortion and even contraception were front-burner issues -- supporters of reproductive health and rights were able to block high-profile attacks on access to abortion in states as diverse as Alabama, Idaho, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Similarly, attacks on state family planning funding were down, and only two states disqualified family planning providers from funding in 2012, compared with seven in 2011. That said, no laws were enacted in 2012 to facilitate or improve access to abortion, family planning or comprehensive sex education*. Arizona enacted abortion seven restrictions; Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin each enacted at least three. Most of the new restrictions enacted in 2012 concerned limits on later abortion, coverage in health exchanges or medication abortion. By March 2012, ultrasound requirements were introduced in 10 states. Mandatory ultrasound provisions are intended to convince a woman to continue her pregnancy to term and require a provider to perform an ultrasound even when one is not medically necessary. In February, a firestorm erupted in Virginia when it became known that the proposed mandate would, in practice, necessitate performance of a transvaginal ultrasound. The controversy not only led to passage of a somewhat weaker requirement in Virginia but also is widely seen as having blunted efforts to mandate ultrasound in Alabama, Idaho and Pennsylvania. The new law in Virginia also requires providers to give women the option to hear a fetal heartbeat in advance of having an abortion. In addition, laws adopted in Louisiana and Oklahoma require abortion providers to make the fetal heartbeat audible to the woman prior to an abortion. In 2012, Arizona, Michigan and Virginia took steps to establish stringent regulations - Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) - that affect only surgical and medication abortion providers, but not other providers of outpatient surgical and medical care. Another TARP attempt failed in Minnesota when Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a measure that would have imposed requirements on abortion providers' facilities, but not other similar outpatient health care facilities. Legislation to require abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges was introduced in five states and enacted in three; this provision is not mandated for other outpatient surgical and medical providers. Arizona, Georgia and Louisiana enacted measures to ban abortion prior to fetal viability in direct conflict with U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The exceptions contained in these restrictions do not allow for an abortion when necessary to protect a woman's health, as required by the Court. Only the Louisiana restriction is fully in effect. It bans abortion at 20 weeks postfertilization (22 weeks after the woman's last menstrual period or LMP). Arizona's provision prohibits abortion at 18 weeks postfertilization (20 weeks LMP); enforcement of the restriction has, so far, been blocked by the ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals. In New Hampshire a law was passed which bans the procedure before viability, even when the woman's health is endangered. When the provision goes into effect in 2013, 19 states will have bans on "partial-birth" abortion. Four states enacted provisions banning abortion coverage in the insurance exchanges being established under the Affordable Care Act. Provisions enacted in Alabama, South Carolina and Wisconsin permit coverage of an abortion in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest. Alabama also permits coverage in the case of ectopic pregnancy, and Wisconsin permits it when a woman's physical health is at serious risk. This brings the number of states restricting abortion coverage available through state insurance exchanges to 20. In 2012, three states limited provision of medication abortion by prohibiting the use of telemedicine, which is becoming a routine part of health care, particularly in rural areas. Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin enacted provisions requiring that the physician prescribing the medication for the abortion be in the same room as the patient, bringing to seven the number of states that prohibit the use of telemedicine. South Dakota and Arizona enacted provisions requiring a woman seeking an abortion to obtain counseling that includes inaccurate or irrelevant information. This brings the number of states that require that women seeking an abortion be given misleading information to 18. Finally, the new ultrasound mandate in Virginia also requires that women who live less than 100 miles from the clinic undergo the ultrasound 24 hours in advance of the abortion compelling women to make two trips to the clinic before receiving an abortion. 10 states now have laws that necessitate a woman to make two trips. Three states - Montana, New Hampshire, and Ohio - adopted requirements that either mandate parental involvement or make it more cumbersome for a minor to use the judicial bypass procedure to obtain an abortion in the absence of parental involvement, bringing the total number of states requiring parental involvement in a minor's decision to have an abortion to 10. Research has found that minors typically involve a parent when deciding to obtain an abortion and many of those who do not talk to their parents report they would experience physical violence or abuse if their parents knew. Eight states adopted other measures related to abortion. In 2011, funds for family planning were cut by more than half in Montana, New Hampshire and Texas. In New Jersey family planning funds were cut drastically in 2010. However, 2012 saw steep cuts only in Maine where funding was slashed by 25%. In 2011, seven states (Kansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Indiana and Texas) moved to enact new restrictions on eligibility for family planning grant funds, often including both state funds and federal funds that flowed from the state treasury to providers. Although most of these restrictions remain in effect, only two states added new restrictions in 2012. In practice, these restrictions affect only clinics operated by Planned Parenthood affiliates. These changes bring to nine the number of states that restrict access to family planning funds Provisions relating to the mandates on contraceptive services through insurance coverage -- and specifically which employers may refuse such coverage -- were introduced in eight states and enacted in two. Eight states now have an "expansive" exemption to their contraceptive coverage mandates. Between 2007 and 2010, seven states enacted legislation related to sex education, and all but one expanded access to comprehensive sex education or added requirements that the sex education provided be medically accurate. Over the past two years, however, five states enacted legislation, and all but one supported abstinence-only education, bringing to 26 the number of states which stress abstinence in sex education.

When Texas state lawmakers passed a two-year budget in 2011 that moved $73 million from family planning services to other programs, the goal was largely political: halt the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics.

The Health and Human Services Commission projections now indicate that during the 2014-15 biennium, poor women will deliver an estimated 23,760 more babies than they would have, as a result of their reduced access to state-subsidized birth control. The additional cost to taxpayers is expected to be as much as $273 million — $103 million to $108 million to the state's general revenue budget alone -- and the bulk of it is the cost of caring for those infants under Medicaid.

In the next legislative session lawmakers will grapple with an existing Medicaid financing shortfall. "I know some of my colleagues felt like in retrospect they did not fully grasp the implications of what was done last session," said Rep. Donna Howard, Democrat, who said she had been discussing ways to restore financing with several other lawmakers in both parties. "I think there is some effort they'll be willing to make to restore whatever we can."

Planned Parenthood would still probably be excluded from future financing because they are "affiliated" with clinics that perform abortions.

Senator Bob Deuell, Republican, said last session's family planning cuts had gone too far. He has the support of some of Texas' leading anti-abortion groups to seek more money for birth control and reproductive health care in 2013.

Dr. Deuell, a primary care physician said he has debated this with people who say "it's not the government's role to provide family planning," .."Ultimately, they're right. But you have to look at what happens if we don't."

The nonpartisan Legislative Budget Board estimated that the cuts would lead 284,000 women to lose family planning services, resulting in 20,000 additional unplanned births at a cost to taxpayers of $231 million.

With Planned Parenthood largely out of the picture, will there be the political will to restore money for birth control, which has increasingly found itself lumped with abortion in Republican debates about family planning.

In Ohio, the Senate failed to bring measures to the floor that would cut, if not eliminate, family-planning funding for Planned Parenthood and all but outlaw abortions in Ohio. This means the bills would die with the close of the two-year session in mid-December and would have to start the legislative process over next year.

"I think you have to look at the entirety of the work that's done by Planned Parenthood, and I believe they offer much-needed services that are not available other places," said Senate President Tom Niehaus (R., New Richmond). "I chose not to take the bill up in lame-duck."

The House committee had voted two weeks ago to send House Bill 298 to the full House. House Speaker Bill Batchelder (R., Medina) questioned whether to go forward with a House vote if the Senate would not take it up.

The bill would have placed Planned Parenthood's 32 Ohio clinics last in line for funds behind government entities, federally qualified health centers, Community Action Agencies, hospitals, and private practices that offer comprehensive primary and preventative health care in addition to family planning services.

Planned Parenthood could have lost up to $1.7 million in state-administered federal aid as a result.

The so-called Heartbeat Bill, House Bill 125, will also die in the Senate. "If you look at past experience, this is the most pro-life Senate that we've had in the General Assembly," Mr. Niehaus said. But he questioned the slow speed at which proponents of the bill have offered compromises. "I still have constitutional concerns," Niehaus said.

The bill would require a doctor to test for a fetal heartbeat and would prohibit an abortion if one is detected. A heartbeat could be detectable as early as six weeks after conception.

Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R., Napoleon), the sponsor of the Heartbeat Bill said he hasn't given up on a Senate vote on the Heartbeat Bill. The bill's supporters contend that presence of a heartbeat is the best indicator that a fetus is likely to be carried to full term. They hope the bill it would give the U.S. Supreme Court an excuse to reverse its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that extended a woman's right to privacy to decisions pertaining to abortion.

The bill would effectively outlaw abortions in most cases in Ohio, particularly if a woman doesn't realize she's pregnant until after the heartbeat is detectable.

Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said: "Make no mistake about it, the threat to women's health may be delayed, but it remains," ... "We fully expect anti-choice forces to reintroduce these dangerous attacks on women's health when the legislature reconvenes in January."

Earlier this year the state of Texas decided to enforce a law that had been on the books for several years barring funding for abortion providers and affiliates. Planned Parenthood is a major reproductive health care provider in Texas, but does not provide abortions at clinics that participate in the Texas Women's Health Program.

A state district judge last month issued a temporary order blocking the state from enforcing the ban. That order was set to expire Friday. Planned Parenthood argued in court on Thursday that the ban is invalid under state law.

Since the program is not in compliance with federal law, federal funding - which pays for most of the Women's Health Program's $40 million annual cost - will stop at the end of the year. The program provides care such as breast and cervical cancer screenings and birth control, and Planned Parenthood says it serves nearly half the 115,000 Texas women who participate.

Losing the funding would lead to the closure of two or three of four Planned Parenthood clinics. It is important that the state complete its transition of the program before the end of the year to ensure there is not an abrupt end to services for beneficiaries.

Planned Parenthood filed a motion asking for its federal lawsuit to be paused while it pursues the state case.

Governor Rick Perry has said that the Texas is ready to roll out a state-funded program.

Title X could be cut by $15 million in fiscal year 2013 by the Sequestration. The program has already been cut by more than $23 million over the past two fiscal years -- limiting access to family-planning services and causing clinics to cut back on staff and hours.

Title X has served primarily low-income women for over 40 years, providing a range of services, including breast and cervical cancer screenings; Pap smear tests; prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections; HIV testing, prevention, and counseling; infertility services; and health care referrals. 60% of women who visit Title X clinics consider them a primary source of health care.

25% of all poor women who obtain contraceptive services in the U.S. do so at a Title X-supported center. 91% of all Title X clients earn less than $28,000 a year.

Millions of women prevent unintended pregnancies with the help of Title X, preventing the negative health, social, and economic outcomes for women and their children associated with unplanned pregnancies. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and the number is 69% for women between the ages of 20 and 29, and nearly half of unplanned pregnancies for the same age group are experienced by women living below 100% of the federal poverty line. It is estimated that overall.

Levels of unintended pregnancy would be an estimated one-third higher without the services provided through Title X-supported centers. Every $1 invested in family-planning care averts nearly $4 in Medicaid expenditures. The public cost of unintended pregnancies is estimated at $11 billion a year, which would be even higher without Title X funding, which prevents more than 900,000 unintended pregnancies each year.

Because Title X funding is flexible and can be offered to a diverse range of grantees, the program has effectively partnered with other public and private entities to create a vast network of reproductive health providers in every state, which benefits all women regardless of income by providing facilities where they can go to receive high-quality and specialized reproductive health care. As of 2011 there were more than 4,000 providers receiving Title X funds in the United States.

Cutting Title X's cost-effective and crucial health service for women is more likely to hurt the country's financial prospects than improve them. It's a perfect example of why the blunt across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect tomorrow should be avoided in favor of a thoughtful and balanced approach to deficit reduction that protects crucial investments in programs such as family-planning services.

In the U.S., Title X (Ten) - The National Family Planning Program - has been saving money, lives and heartache for more than 40 years. It prevents unwanted pregnancies, detects cancer, treats deadly infections and helps babies get a good start in life.

In 2008 Title X funding prevented 973,000 unintended pregnancies, 433,000 unplanned births, and 406,000 abortions. In 2010 Title X provided 5.2 million Americans with Pap tests, breast exams, family planning advice and contraception. Without it, teen pregnancies would rise, and taxpayers would have to spend more on public services. Our health care system would suffer and so would people.

No Title X money is spent on abortion. About 69% of families served by Title X had family incomes at or below the poverty level.

When women are able to postpone pregnancy, plan their families and space their births, they are healthier, and their babies are, too, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Teens can stay in school. College dreams can become reality. The economic pressures large families face can be avoided.

Our planet benefits, too, by less use of the natural resources we all depend upon.

Every dollar invested in Title X family planning programs saves $3.74 in Medicaid costs the next year, according to Guttmacher Institute.

But for some strange reason, the House this year voted to defund Title X - and leave those 5.2 million Americans to fend for themselves.

Talk to the politicians vowing to defund family planning programs, confront them. Ask them why they want more unintended pregnancies, extra unplanned births and a spike in the abortion rate. Ask them why they want women's lives constrained in a way that men's simply are not.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Beginning the 1st of August the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care plan began, which would give millions of women access to a full range of preventive health care services without a co-pay. These services include breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling; screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence; screening for gestational diabetes; DNA testing for high-risk strains of HPV; counseling regarding sexually transmitted infections, including HIV; screening for HIV; contraceptive methods and counseling; and well-woman visits. Also the health care plan ensures that plans must cover an array of services, vaccinations, and interventions, including those specifically needed by women, infants, children, and adolescents at different points in their lifecycle.

However, religious and political fundamentalists at the state and federal level are trying to deny women access to reproductive health care of virtually every kind, often based on the notion that the new health care act gives women access to birth control for free.

This is not the case, and it is misleading - and politically dangerous - to say so.

You have to have an insurance policy to get birth control without a co-pay. Women cannot get the pill without a prescription, which first entails a visit to a doctor's office. No one without insurance can walk into a doctor's office and get an IUD or any kind of contraception for free, unless they are covered by insurance. Ten percent of women in the United States who work full time are currently uninsured. They and those who otherwise uninsured do not have access to "free" birth control.

If you have insurance, you pay for it, either by virtue of your labor or out of your own pocket, or, depending on the situation, both. And under the ACA it is now mandated that your insurance plan cover certain benefits without a co-pay. This does not make them "free." It means that you are paying for that service as part of your premium. You earned it, you paid for it, it is yours. If you pay for it, you deserve to get it.

Health insurance benefits, along with matching benefits for retirement, vacation time, life and disability insurance, and Social Security were either earned or paid for out of the employee's earnings.

Insurance companies know that offering certain kinds of preventive care and making that care more accessible to more people means that a small investment in the short-term will keep costs lower in the long term. An early abnormal pap smear leading to early treatment is a lot less expensive for them than is treatment for cervical cancer later on. An unwanted pregnancy averted through use of contraception is less expensive than an abortion.

What the Affordable Care Act does is help to begin addressing the disparities in our insurance policies and premiums to make them more equitable. Fewer working women than working men in this country have employer-based insurance; insurers have historically charged women more than men in a practice known as gender-rating; and for a very long time, women have paid more out-of-pocket for basic preventive health care services like pap smears and birth control.

The reason that lawmakers and insurance companies did this has to do largely with the cost-savings that will be realized: healthier women mean a healthier society and reduced economic and social costs.

We should support expanding government-funded programs to ensure that all women have access to birth control and other preventive health services, because it makes sense in terms of public health and the economy, and because such access is a basic human right. But people who earn their insurance coverage pay for it, and they deserve the benefit for which they are paying.

Let's call the birth control benefit what it is: Women's hard-earned insurance coverage. It's ours. We earned it. We pay for it. We deserve it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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."

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.

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.

Texas legislators slashed funds for family planning and passed up $30 million a year in federal Medicaid money over the last two years. The intent was to mainly to squeeze Planned Parenthood out of the state's women's health programs. Hundreds recently gathered at the Texas State Capitol in Austin to protest.

Nearly 200,000 Texas women have lost or could lose access to contraception, cancer screenings, and basic preventive care, especially in low-income, rural parts of the state.

The Texas Policy Evaluation Project reported that nearly half of the 300 pregnant women seeking an abortion they surveyed said they were "unable to access the birth control that they wanted to use" in the three months before they became pregnant. they cited cost, lack of insurance, inability to find a clinic, and inability get a prescription as reasons.

The state's health commission expects nearly 24,000 unplanned births between 2014 and 2015 thanks to these cuts, raising state and federal taxpayer's Medicaid costs by up to $273 million.

Half of pregnancies were unplanned in 2011 in Texas, and 1 in 3 women of childbearing age lacks health insurance.

Planned Parenthood clinics serviced nearly 50% of the Women's' Health Service patients. Along with contraceptive counseling, the clinics provided basic screenings for cancer, hypertension, and other key problems. Tens of millions in Medicaid reimbursements to the Women's Health Program were forfeited.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission insists the revamped, wholly state-run and state-funded Women's Health Program can reshuffle all the displaced patients and keep providing the same levels of care as before. Researchers at George Washington University found that in order to effectively replace Planned Parenthood, other clinics would need to increase their caseloads two to five times.

However, more than a fifth have reduced their hours of operation. And instead of offering highly effective IUDs, clinics are more likely to offer lower-cost birth control pills. They also tend to give out fewer packs of pills per visit. One clinic has raised its fee for an annual exam from $20 to $35. Now Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas have to charge nearly $100; before defunding, they were virtually free.

Meanwhile, anti-choice legislators are touting these cuts as a way to wipe out the "abortion industry," but it turns out none of the 53 clinics that closed since September 2011 were providing abortions to begin with. Under the Hyde Amendment, public health providers can't use federal funding to administer abortions. Clinics providing abortions in this state were untouched by these cuts.

In 2011, there were about 70,000 abortions in Texas, down 10% from 2010.

Since 2010, nine states have tried to cut family planning funds; Montana, New Hampshire, and New Jersey have slashed their family planning budgets by more than half. Seven have made it harder for clinics like Planned Parenthood to receive state or federal family planning grants. Last month, four Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin shut down in the face of cuts.

Fortunately, some Texas state senators are proposing to add $100 million back into the state's primary care program, specifically for women's health services.

Under the Affordable Care Act, contraception coverage without cost to women is required as part of basic health care coverage. However, despite overwhelming evidence that the ability to plan and space pregnancies critically impacts a woman's health and the health of her children, many employers are suing the federal government, claiming that the requirement to cover contraception violates their personal religious beliefs, one of which is that emergency contraception, the "morning-after pill," is the same as abortion.

Abortion foes believe what isn't true when they equate contraception and emergency contraception with abortion. They don't believe what is true when they fail to see that the best way to prevent abortion is to provide reliable birth control.

After unprotected intercourse, sperm can live in the woman's reproductive system for up to five days, waiting for the egg to be released. But the morning-after pill works by preventing the release of the egg, thereby preventing fertilization and pregnancy. It decreases the likelihood of pregnancy by about 80%.

The product descriptions for the two available medications state that blocking implantation of an embryo is a possible mechanism for these medications, but newer studies dispute this. Neither medication interrupts an established pregnancy, so the idea that emergency contraception equates to abortion is false.

Rape victims and women who have a contraceptive failure have a vital need for access to emergency contraception.

The medical practice has always helped people recover from the consequences of their lifestyle choices. We provide emergency care to people injured from risky behavior and cardiac care to patients who develop heart disease from their diet and exercise habits, and we treat lung cancer patients who smoke.

50% of U.S. pregnancies are unplanned, and 25% end in abortion. Data from the U.S. and other countries shows us that making abortion illegal does not prevent its occurrence.

A study of no-cost contraception provided to women in the St. Louis area showed that, without cost as a determining factor, more women chose the very effective long-acting methods of contraception, and had 75% fewer abortions than other women in the same region. The teen pregnancy rate in study participants was 6 per 1,000 teens compared to 34 per 1,000 for the region.

We must expand access to the only proven method of abortion prevention: effective contraception.

A poll of registered voters in Texas showed that 73% supported the state providing contraceptive care for low-income women, and another 84% said they favored teaching contraception, including use of condoms, along with abstinence in high school sex education. 56% oppose allowing employers, based on religious or moral beliefs, to be able to deny contraceptive services through employee health plans, and 57% said they opposed the funding cuts made last legislative session to women's health programs.

The poll was a joint effort by Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg and Republican pollster Robert Carpenter. The telephone poll of 604 registered voters was conducted in February.

Texas Freedom Network president Kathy Miller said "The pill is not fair game in the culture wars."

Carpenter said that the numbers cuts across all demographic groups - including Catholics, Republican women, Hispanics and those who attend religious services at least once a week.

Greenberg said the strong support for contraception could prove to be a strong issue in the long-term.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have reintroduced the "Access to Birth Control (ABC) Act," which would prevent a pharmacy from interfering in the personal medical decisions made by a patient and her doctor. Lautenberg said "Birth control is basic health care for women, and Obamacare has removed financial hurdles for millions of women; we can't allow other obstacles to be placed in their way. By guaranteeing that women can access birth control at every pharmacy in the country, we can ensure that women are never denied the right to make responsible decisions about their reproductive health."

The bill protects the right of individual pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription, but also ensures that pharmacies will fill all prescriptions, even if a different pharmacist has to do it. In addition, if the requested product is not in stock, but the pharmacy stocks other forms of contraception, the bill mandates that the pharmacy help the woman obtain the medication without delay by the method of her preference: order, referral, or a transferred prescription.

Only seven states guarantee that women's birth control prescriptions will be filled.

The lawmakers are trying to strike a balance between religious objections to contraception and the rights of the women who shouldn't have to care what their pharmacists think about their use of birth control.

At Notre Dame in 1966 faculty members formed a group to advocate for government funding of family planning programs, advertised a statement of support in Catholic publications, and received over 500 signatures from Catholic clergy, nuns, lawyers, doctors, and faculty members at Catholic universities, including the deans of Notre Dame and Santa Clara's law schools. The Notre Dame professor chairing the committee said "in a pluralistic society, some legislation may be desirable even though it may not be in accord with the moral principles of a minority of the society's members."

He said the impetus for the group's formation had been an address by Father Hanley, a law professor at Georgetown University, to the American Bar Association arguing for government family planning programs. Father Hanley also testified before a congressional subcommittee in support of access to contraception. Georgetown is the same university that trained a lawyer named Sandra Fluke. So she was following in the footsteps of a revered Georgetown professor and priest who had inspired Catholics across the country to take action.

While most people think that Fluke was demanding government funding for contraception, what she actually testified about was the sub-par plan available to Georgetown students (who are required to have health insurance). Typically, student health plans involve students paying money to a third-party health insurance company; neither government nor university funds are involved in these transactions.

Father Hanley testified that he could firmly maintain his moral positions as a Catholic while supporting a government program that "permits each citizen a fully free moral choice in matters of family planning, and aids him in implementing this choice."

Today Georgetown has taken advantage of the safe harbor from the contraceptive coverage requirements, claiming it has a religious belief that bars providing insurance that covers contraception, even though faculty members' health plans have included contraceptive coverage for years. Or even though Georgetown hosted an excellent conference on the HHS regulation where most scholars rejected the claim that providing coverage violated Catholic doctrine or that requiring it violated the law.

From 1963 to 1967 Notre Dame held an annual "Conference on Population," in partnership with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, from 1963 to 1967. In 1965, thirty-seven scholars who attended the conference sent a statement to the Pope that declared "here is dependable evidence that contraception is not intrinsically immoral, and that therefore there are certain circumstances in which it may be permitted or indeed even recommended."

Now Notre Dame, in its lawsuit, claims it has a sincere religious belief that the Church's "centuries' old teachings" prohibit coverage. Yet Kathleen Kaveny, a professor of both law and theology at Notre Dame, has argued the legality of the mandate in detail.

Turning to Fordham University, also Catholic-affiliated. It had an off-campus birth control clinic organized by Fordham law students. In 1967 it had a sexual education program which would "include frank discussions of methods of conception and contraception" and was permissible because "the morality of contraceptives does not enter into the discussion." Today Fordham health center policies prohibit medical professionals from condoning contraception. However Fordham students have had contraceptive coverage for years and thanks to the Affordable Care Act, they can now go see a real gynecologist off-campus without paying a co-payment.

Moving on to the Catholic University of America, Father Charles Curran, a theology professor in 1965, argued for a change in the Church's doctrine on contraception, resulting in efforts to dismiss him. After. CUA's theology faculty went on strike; theology faculties across the country joined them, leading the trustees to reconsider.

In 1968, the Pope rejected the recommendations of his papal commission on contraception and released Humanae Vitae to the surprise and dismay of the many Catholics who had expected a reform of the prohibition. Humanae Vitae was met with unprecedented, widespread, vocal dissent. The theology faculties of Fordham, Marquette, Boston College and other schools made public statements opposing it. Father Curran authored a statement criticizing it that 600 theologians signed and continued to publicly dissent from Church teachings on contraception, abortion, and homosexuality until he was dismissed.

We employees and students did not waive the benefit of being protected by generally applicable laws and we weren't asked to. We entered into contracts with our particular institutions, we didn't consent to being governed by whoever is on top in the Catholic hierarchy at any given time.

Professors who joined universities decades ago to students who just matriculated said they received assurances that allowed them to enter these vibrant academic communities that don't resemble the current orthodoxy machines being portrayed at all. The assertions in so many of the cookie-cutter birth control lawsuits show a disdain for individual conscience, basic contract principles of notice and consent, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy from the Church.

Recently the Obama administration, trying to be sensitive to the bishops' claims to conscience, unveiled adjustments to its health-care plan that would allow religious organizations to abstain from offering their employees contraceptive coverage under their group plans while, at the same time, requiring insurers to offer the coverage separately. The woman gets the coverage. and the insurer doesn't have to pay the higher costs associated with unplanned, unwanted pregnancies.

But three American bishops said they'd sooner go to jail than submit to the contraceptive mandate. The archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, called the administration's concessions "minimalist" and used the phrase "immoral services" as a euphemism for birth control.

It seems what they want is for American women to be thrust back to a time when legal birth control was scarce, expensive and difficult to procure.

In the meantime, the National Catholic Reporter ran an article entitled "Vatican admits it doesn't fully understand youth culture." The hierarchy held a closed-door conference in Rome from Wednesday through Saturday at which bishops listened to experts on youth in an effort to improve their messaging to the young and recapture some of the generation who are falling away.

In preparation the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, said he'd been listening to Amy Winehouse. Maybe he will figure it out: young people care about sex. And they care about how religious leaders talk about sex. In America they don't like religions that preach negative messages about sex. They don't like to be told that sex is bad or that premarital sex is a paving stone on the road to hell or that homosexuals are in any way, as the catechism says, "intrinsically disordered." The conservative insistence on birth control as "immoral," is, for young Catholics, a turnoff.

Donna Freitas, a Catholic and a scholar of religion and also of college students' attitudes toward sex, wrote: "Catholic students especially spoke with great sarcasm about the 'don'ts' with regard to sex in the Catholic tradition, which make them feel alienated, and which make them think that Catholicism is utterly out of touch." 98% of Catholic women have used birth control at some point in their lives, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

For religious nonprofits that object to the mandated coverage of contraceptives, the Obama administration proposed a measure that will allow large faith-based hospitals and universities to issue plans that do not directly provide birth control coverage.

Under the plan, objecting nonprofits with self-insured plans opting out of contraceptive coverage would notify the company that administers their health benefits. That third-party administrator would then be responsible for arranging "separate individual health insurance policies for contraceptive coverage from an issuer providing such polices." This policy would stand apart from the employer's larger benefit package. Insurers who create these plans for self-insured companies will receive an offset from the federal government: lower fees to sell plans on the new health exchanges run by the Obama administration.

The faith-based employer would not "have to contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds." Some of the 40 lawsuits filed against the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive requirement were put on hold until the Obama administration clarified its policy on the issue.

Last February, the Obama administration announced an accommodation to faith-based nonprofits: A third-party insurance company would cover the cost of contraceptive coverage. Religious leaders derided the policy as an "accounting gimmick," arguing that the premiums they pay to a health insurer could ultimately end up paying for the contraceptives they opposed.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, leader of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops - essentially the spokesman for the U.S. church said: "Today, the Administration issued proposed regulations regarding the HHS mandate. We welcome the opportunity to study the proposed regulations closely. We look forward to issuing a more detailed statement later."

"HHS and the administration have gone out of their way to resolve the concerns of religious institutions that object to covering contraceptives in their insurance programs," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, former editor of prominent Catholic magazine America and a well-known writer. "They have also found creative ways to provide contraceptives to the employees of religious colleges and hospitals without the involvement of these institutions."

Many women's health groups quickly supported the new policy.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Under an amendment proposed by Republicans in Ohio's legislative House, sex ed classes wouldn't be permitted to provide students with any information that might "condone" gateway activity. That includes dispensing contraception. Gateway activity is described as "sexual contact" ; that is, “any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast." The legislation would also empower parents to sue if their children end up receiving this type of sexual instruction, and sex ed teachers could be subject to thousands of dollars in fines:

The legislation would also empower parents to sue if their children end up receiving this type of sexual instruction, and sex ed teachers could be subject to thousands of dollars in fines:

It goes on to prohibit distributing certain materials, conducting demonstrations with “sexual stimulation" devices, or distributing contraception.

If a student receives such instruction, a parent or guardian can sue for damages, and a court may impose a civil fine of up to $5,000.

Last year, Tennessee Republicans pushed to strengthen their state's abstinence-only law by defining kissing and hand-holding as gateway activities that could lead teens to engage in sexual intercourse. Whether or not U.S. teenagers are taught abstinence in their health classes, most of them still become sexually active. By their 19th birthday, 70% of American teens will have had sex.

Abortion opponents in Ohio also successfully pushed for an amendment to the legislation that would defund the state's Planned Parenthood clinics, and reallocate those family planning dollars to right-wing “crisis pregnancy centers" that don't actually provide the same kind of health services.

The provisions will head to a full House vote later this week.

In the first three months of this year state legislatures introduced 694 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. 93 have been approved by at least one legislative body.

About half of these seek to restrict access to abortion, most of them seeking to ban abortion outright. 14 states introduced provisions seeking to ban abortion prior to viability. All of these proposals are in direct violation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions which allow abortions up until viability.

Legislators in 10 states have introduced proposals that would ban all, or nearly all, abortions. In eight of those states (AL, IA, MS, ND, OK, SC, VA and WA), legislators have proposed defining "personhood" as beginning at conception; if adopted, these measures would ban most, if not all, abortions. In CO, FL, IA and ND, legislators introduced measures that would ban abortion except in very limited circumstances, such as when the woman's life is endangered or in cases of rape or incest; none have passed a legislative chamber.

Arkansas and North Dakota have already enacted legislation this year banning nearly all abortions beginning at some point in the first trimester of pregnancy; similar measures have been introduced in KS, KY, MS and WY.

Legislation to ban abortions at 20 weeks postfertilization was enacted in Arkansas and is pending in nine other states (IA, IL, KY, MD, ND, OR, TX, VA and WV). These bans are patterned after a 2010 Nebraska law that has already served as the model for such laws in eight other states, two of which are enjoined pending legal challenges because they prohibit abortion prior to viability.

Eight states (AL, AR, IA, IN, MO, MS, NC and TX) have introduced provisions to restrict medication abortion. If adopted, these restrictions threaten U.S. trend toward very early abortion.

Seven states already ban telemedicine for prescribing medication abortion.

On the other hand, two states, Colorado and Hawaii, were poised at the end of March to enact legislation expanding access to comprehensive sex education; if enacted, it would be the first time since 2010 that any state has done so.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Recently, Mitt Romney announced his choice for his vice presidential running mate: outspoken anti- choice Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin.

Ryan cast 59 anti-choice votes on abortion and other reproductive rights issues in the U.S. House of Representatives. He repeatedly voted for and cosponsored the Federal Abortion Ban, a law that criminalizes some abortion services, endangers women's health, and carries a two-year prison sentence for doctors.

"I'm as pro-life as a person gets. You're not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they're unavoidable, and I'm never going to not vote pro-life," he said

If elected on November 6, there is no doubt that Ryan will work with Mitt Romney the day after the inauguration to:

* Defund Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation

* Eliminate the Title X family-planning program, which provides mammograms and cancer screenings to low-income individuals

* Deny women in the military -- who defend our freedom overseas -- the right to use their own, private funds for abortion care at military hospitals

* Pass legislation to effectively ban abortion coverage in state health-insurance exchanges

*Allow hospitals to refuse to provide emergency abortion care, even when a woman's life is in danger

With nothing to stand in the way of the extreme Romney-Ryan agenda, we could lose the protection of Roe v. Wade, women's health and lives will be at risk -- and anti-choice zealots could wipe out decades' worth of reproductive rights we've fought so hard to win.

We need to knock on every door, make every call, and sound the warning bell to every pro-choice voter we can find. If we can get them to the polls, we can defeat anti-choice politicians running across the country and continue with all our important grassroots and advocacy work to ensure the right to privacy.

Santorum:

One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, "Well, that's okay. Contraception's okay."

It's not okay because it's a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They're supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also , but also procreative. That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that's not for purposes of procreation, that's not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can't you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure. And that's certainly a part of it—and it's an important part of it, don't get me wrong—but there's a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.

Again, I know most Presidents don't talk about those things, and maybe people don't want us to talk about those things, but I think it's important that you are who you are. I'm not running for preacher. I'm not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues. These how profound impact on the health of our society.

http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/14/rick-santorum-wants-to-fight-the-dangers-of-contraception/#ixzz1mUrlXNQR

Ron Paul:

Last year, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul introduced a bill in Congress that would allow states to ban contraception if they choose.

Paul's "We the People Act," which he introduced in 2004, 2005, 2009, and 2011, explicitly forbids federal courts and the Supreme Court of the United States from ruling on the constitutionality of a variety of state and local laws. That includes, among other things, "any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction." The bill would let states write laws forbidding abortion, the use of contraceptives, or consensual gay sex, for example.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/ron-paul-birth-control

Ron Paul is not a true Libertarian. He is anti-abortion and anti-contraception.

As Ayn Rand said: An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

Too bad, I like his other ideals. But if he is going to twist this one ideal, who knows what he will do with the others. It is not so simple after all.

There is no way he is going to win this one. 98% of American women have used or are using contraception, and that includes 97% of Catholic women. How would you like it if you were forced, by law, to preserve all of your sperm? That's where the Mississippi Personhood law is headed.

Gingrich

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich acknowledged on Thursday that his support for a "fetal personhood" constitutional amendment would make some forms of birth control illegal.

Earlier in the week, the candidate had signed a pledge (PDF) from the group Personhood USA that declared he would "support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and endorse legislation to make clear the 14th Amendment protections apply to unborn children."

At a campaign event in Fort Dodge, Iowa Thursday, a young woman asked Gingrich what this meant for birth control.

http://smd12364.newsvine.com/_news/2011/12/17/9517341-gingrich-post-conception-birth-control-should-be-illegal

Romney

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) told Fox News host Mike Huckabee this weekend that he would support an amendment to his state's constitution to define life as beginning at conception, which would outlaw abortion and potentially many forms of contraception as well. Noting that the state supreme court forced the inclusion of abortion coverage in Romney's universal health care law, the GOP presidential front-runner said the only way to undo the decision would be a constitutional amendment. Asked if he would support such a move, Romney replied, "absolutely":

HUCKABEE: Would you have supported a constitutional amendment that would have established definition of life beginning of life at conception?

ROMNEY: Absolutely.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/03/334190/mitt-romeny-constitutional-amendment-abortioneption/?mobile=nc

Texas Governor Perry

Perry has taken large amounts of funding away from Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides most of the birth control to low-income individuals. Whether or not you think the poor deserve free birth control, it is very poor use of public funds to limit access to pregnancy prevention while spending much larger amounts to pay for Medicaid births.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/09/medical-legacy-rick-perry.html

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

The London Summit on Family Planning held in July harvested commitments from organisations and nations which enabled it to easily overshoot that $2.3 billion target. The Summary of Commitments from the UK Department of International Development reported that commitments came from 10 donor countries, 6 foundations, 19 developing countries, 21 civil society groups, 3 multi-lateral partnerships, and 1 private sector company.

The goal of the summit was to raise sufficient donor funds to meet the unmet need for contraception of 120 million women worldwide by 2020. This would require an extra $4.3 billion injected into family planning programs over the next 8 years. Of that $4.3 billion, $2.3 billion would be provided by donors.

In summary, the world is putting its money where its mouth is, taking Sexual and Reproductive Health seriously, and placing it at the center of the development agenda.

The Summary of Commitments incorporates International Planned Parenthood Federation's (IPPF) own commitment to treble the number of women's and girls' lives saved each year by 2020.

With increased capacity, increased funding, and strengthened service delivery systems, IPPF aims to save the lives of 54,000 women and girls, avert 46 million unintended pregnancies, and prevent 12.4 million unsafe abortions by 2020. The federation will also triple its services to young people by 2020, and make commodities more affordable.

Jean H. Baker's biography "Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion" rejects the narrow-mindedness that has characterized many previous Sanger biographies and instead focuses on Margaret Sanger's life as a whole - her flaws and missteps yes, but also her determination, intelligence, and steadfast commitment to improving the lives of millions of women and their families.

Sanger's view on reproductive rights and fight for universal access to birth control (as well as her controversial teachings on safe sex, child bearing and maternal health) made her a frequent target of those on the religious right. But words like "eugenicist" and "egotistical" have been allowed to mar her story and deter from her accomplishments.

Margaret Sanger was the 6th daugher of poor parents in Corning, N.Y., who watched her mother endure five more pregnancies before succumbing to tuberculosis at a young age. She trained as a nurse in what became New York's Lower East Side, helping young women deliver child after child, many of whom could not afford to feed their growing families and begged for the "secret" of pregnancy prevention.

Sanger, in a campaign to fight the injustice of inavailability of pregnancy prevention, wrote books, gave speeches, opened the first women's health clinics in the U.S., and ultimately spawned a birth control movement that would expand around the world.

She was bold and ruthless, difficult to befriend and often turned away potential collaboration. She ignored the contributions of her co-workers, and left her children for long stretches of time, preferring a life of travel and activism to the comforts and responsibilities of home. But she was effective.

Born into a world where sex and pregnancy were rarely discussed (much less sex for pleasure and pregnancy by choice) Sanger lived to see the historic creation of the birth control pill and the declaration of birth control as a constitutional right.

Margaret Sanger, then, was not the perfectly packaged hero we read about in historical textbooks, nor the demon described by the right. In "Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion," we have the unique opportunity to see the activist as she really was: bold, ruthless, compassionate, flawed. And that, I think, is pretty cool.

Jane Turville is making a documentary film series called 'The People Problem' to educate the people in the environmental and sustainability communities who view population growth through a very narrow, specific lens that doesn't allow for an inclusive discussion. 'Stop having kids' seems to be their only solution. The other reason for making the series is that those of us who are interested in exploring population growth, don't know or can't relate to the many issues involved, so we have problems even starting a broader discussion.

Why don't people well-versed in sustainability issues feel as comfortable talking about the number of people on the planet as they do about ending oil dependence or shopping locally? We think over-population is an issue, but to talk about it feels like we somehow support forcing people to give up basic human rights. And, face it, telling someone they can't have kids IS impinging on the basic human right to choose the size of one's family.

The majority of the information on population out there is very good and very compelling, but despite all of the data, stories and programs, Jane couldn't figure out very easily exactly how all of this related to her - a white gal, living in a small city in America, trying to live more sustainably. The hole in the information is "how does it apply to me."

Last year, she decided to make a film. It is a four-part series that will be marketed to public broadcasting stations in North America as well as international venues. Material from the four-hour series will also be used to create a 90-minute documentary suitable for public screenings and film festivals. The goal is to broadcast the film in Spring 2015.

Many ideas float around regarding over-population. Everything from remaining childless for the sake of the planet, placing limits on health access for seniors, and building walls to eliminate immigration. All of these ideas have one thing in common. They all diminish personal choice. Most of us (including myself) value the freedom to choose your own destiny as a basic human right. Yet, people fear that talking about population growth is, in fact, a discussion on the removal of this basic human right.

Most population information is presented through numbers, charts and graphs. While the information is compelling, it's really hard to take data presented in this form and apply it to yourself. So, it's easy to conclude that it's someone else's issue and that responsibility lies elsewhere.

The film will present population issues in a way that (a) alleviates fear about discussing population and (b) translates compelling data into stories that resonate with mainstream citizens.

Using the nesting basket sustainability model as a framework, the film will weave interviews with professionals into the stories of three families located in America, Brazil and China. The data explained by professionals is immediately illustrated through each family's story. By showing the data's real-world applications for real families, the film will help viewers relate with statistical information and at the same time, bring to light the role of affluence and consumerism in population issues, dispelling the myth that it is a third world problem. We'll also take a look at population throughout history.

In the 'nesting basket' model, the first basket represents earth's natural systems, which should be healthy and abundant. The second basket rests inside the first and represents society, which thrives only when nested in a healthy environment. The third basket nests in the social basket and represents the economy, which remains stable when the baskets it rests in are strong. This structure achieves the balance required for a sustainable society.

If humans are going to make educated decisions about the environment, social issues and economies, population has to be part of the conversation. We shouldn't be afraid to talk about it. We shouldn't shrug it off as someone else's problem. If you want to be the catalyst that brings a balanced discussion into homes, churches, classrooms, and boardrooms, you should support this project.

.. http to make a donation to the making of this film.

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?

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.

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.

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.�

"The outcomes from Rio +20 will set the agenda for a new development paradigm reaching beyond 2015!" was one of the many expectations for the Rio+20 conference. But people from every sector - oceans, food security, education, energy - all will express disappointment.

For those of us advancing the sexual and reproductive rights of women, Rio+20 has been particularly disappointing. The Rio +20 outcome document, "The Future We Want," is silent on sexual and reproductive rights, and, during the negotiations, many of the EU and G77 countries who have been progressive on these issues in the past were completely silent.

Despite encouragement from the U.S. and a handful of other countries to protect and support women's rights, these "allies" said nothing and did nothing as the Holy See, Malta, Poland, Algeria, and other conservative countries rolled back the clock on women's rights.

At the same time, the Guttmacher Institute and UNFPA released a study showing that in the 69 poorest countries, the need actually increased from 153 to 162 million women between 2008 and 2012.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the last day of the Rio+20 United Nations conference that "women must be empowered to make decisions on whether and when to have children" if the world is to attain agreed-upon sustainable development goals.

She applauded the final document's endorsement of women's sexual and reproductive health which, in its initial draft said "We are committed to ensure the equal access of women and girls to education, basic services, economic opportunities, and health care services, including addressing women's sexual and reproductive health and their reproductive rights," but in the final draft, the stronger wording "We are committed to ensure the equal access" was switched to the weaker "We are committed to promote equal access," and the reference to reproductive rights was deleted altogether, after opposition from the G-77, a negotiating bloc of developing countries at the United Nations, and the Holy See.

An envoy of Pope Benedict XVI, reiterated the Vatican's position that "all human life, from conception until natural death, has the same worth and deserves the same dignity."

Leaders from other countries, including Norway, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico, Iceland, Switzerland and Israel fought to keep the reference to reproductive rights, as did nongovernmental organizations promoting human rights and women's rights.

Peggy Clark, from the Aspen Institute said "The ability to choose the number, spacing and timing of children is not a luxury. It is a basic human right, one that has already been affirmed by the world community at the Cairo and Beijing conferences."

"The key word is access, above all for women," Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said. "In Brazil, we are investing to overcome difficulties and poor access to public health services that would allow the full exercise of sexual and reproductive rights, including family planning."

The number of women who would like to avoid having another baby but who are not using modern contraception is now around 222 million, says Guttmacher Institute.

July 11 there will be a family planning summit in London where how much money is needed, what it should pay for and whether the fundamentally important issues of women's reproductive rights will be addressed will be discussed, and where the Gates Foundation, DfID and others will be soliciting money pledges.

Currently, $4 billion is spent on family planning in the developing world every year. That saves $5.6 billion which would otherwise have been spent on women and children through unwanted pregnancies and births. $8.1 billion is needed to meet the total need for contraception - double current spending. But that would also more than double the savings from unwanted pregnancies to a total of $11.3 billion. That is $1.40 for every dollar spent.

Dr Sharon Camp, president of the Guttmacher Institute, told us that there are programmatic issues beyond contraceptive supplies that need attention if we are going to be successful in meeting the goals of the summit. One of the reasons women tell us they are not using a method of contraception is that they are very worried about side-effects and long-term health risks. Many of the things they think they understand about long-term contraception are not true. Many women even in the US underestimate the effectiveness of modern contraceptives and by far overestimate the side-effects.

It is also necessary to raise the overall knowledge of women and their partners about contraception. That probably needs to start in schools. There needs to be a bigger effort in public health education. A lot of developing countries have very good policies around sex education but nothing is happening on the ground.

There also needs to be new forms for contraception, pointing out that women who do not want any more children may be using them for 25 years - a long time not to slip up.

Meanwhile Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and others want to ensure the clock is not turned back to a time when the talk was of population control, not women's choices. Sexual and reproductive health and rights should be at the centre of the London discussions, they say in a declaration:

"Our experience, built over decades of work around the world, has taught us that the failure to take actions guided by women's human rights - to health, to life, to live free from discrimination among others - can have devastating consequences. Policies that accept or tacitly condone forced sterilization, the coercive provision of contraceptives, and the denial of essential services to the young, poor and marginalized women that need them every day have violated, and continue to violate, women's human rights."

The summit is taking place on World Population Day, which some think ominous. This must be about enabling women to choose, overcoming all sorts of barriers to having as large or small a family as they want, from ensuring there is a well-stocked family planning clinic nearby to being free of social, cultural and religious pressures either for or against more babies.

Rio+20 (the UN Conference on Sustainable Development conference) seems to be skirting the population issue. Of the seven critical issues for Rio, listed on the UNCSD website, population isn't one of them. The one paragraph which does talk about it accurately states the situation the world is facing:

"We are deeply concerned that around 1.4 billion people still live in extreme poverty and one sixth of the world's population is undernourished, pandemics and epidemics are omnipresent threats. Unsustainable development has increased the stress on the earth's limited natural resources and on the carrying capacity of ecosystems. Our planet supports seven billion people expected to reach nine billion by 2050."

The draft document addresses sustainable development goals, including sustainable consumption and production patterns as well as priority areas such as oceans; food security and sustainable agriculture; sustainable energy for all; water access and efficiency; sustainable cities; green jobs, decent work and social inclusion; and disaster risk reduction and resilience. All of these are important, but since population growth affects all of them, it should be directly addressed by the Rio agenda.

Kim Lovell, with the Sierra Club's Global Population and Environment Program, said that "Rio provides a rare opportunity to have a global conversation about sustainable development solutions that protect human rights, improve community and environmental health, and preserve resources for future generations. Slowing population growth by ensuring access to voluntary family planning and education for women and girls is essential in this pursuit. "... "When women are educated and have the ability to plan their family size, they tend to have smaller, healthier families - and with solutions like these that improve lives and lessen pressure on scarce resources, what better venue than Rio to engage stakeholders at all levels to take local, national, and global action?"

In September 2011, the UNFPA called the failure to address population in Rio+20 a step backwards and said that failure to cover it would undermine efforts to promote sustainable development. Viable solutions would address voluntary family planning, women's rights, and conservation, as well as poverty alleviation, reduction of inequality and unsustainable levels of consumption. The world cannot afford another global conference with modest or weak results.

What you can do to get population on the agenda: Go to Rio de Janeiro and join in civil society activities, such as The People's Summit, a parallel event to Rio+20 being held Jun. 15- 23, 2012.

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.

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.

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.