We've Moved!

Exciting news! We've moved our blog to the Population Connection website at http://www.populationconnection.org. Be sure to read all of our updates at the brand new blog, Connecting Dots. See you there!

Hey Slate: We Still Exist! Here's What We're About

On Friday, Slate.com reporter Emily Bazelon wrote a post about a confusing quote made by Ruth Bader Ginsburg three years ago. Bazelon might have cleared up what Bader Ginsburg said, but it certainly didn't do anything to clear up Population Connection's position on population growth, women's rights and social justice! President John Seager straightens things out here:

By John Seager
President, Population Connection

It was nice to see Slate clear up some misunderstandings about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s views on abortion and feminism (Talking to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oct. 19). Unfortunately, the explanation might have engendered some new misunderstandings – about my organization.

First of all, Zero Population Growth didn’t disappear with the VW buses and Birkenstocks. We still exist – both as a nonprofit organization and a movement. We’re now called Population Connection, and the movement is centered on expanding human rights – making sure every person who wants it has access to voluntary family planning, fighting for social justice and protecting the planet we all depend upon. We are a pro-choice organization not out of some drive to reduce “certain populations,” but because we support women’s rights. Period.

However, two things have changed since the heyday of interest in population growth. Number one: The world’s population has nearly doubled. Number two: Nobody wants to talk about it. Any suggestion that the planet has limits tends to brand one as some sort of eugenicist, as Jonah Goldberg so ably demonstrated.

Currently, our Earth’s population stands at more than 7 billion. Count noses in 1974, and there were 4 billion of us. The United Nations projects that by 2050, we could have anywhere from 8.1 billion (if contraception access is expanded) to 10.6 billion.

Perhaps that eye-popping number wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t for several inconvenient truths. One is that growth in agriculture yields is not keeping pace with population growth – meaning a lot more hungry people in the future. Another is that clean water is already a scarce commodity in many areas experiencing rapid population growth.

The third is that women around the world still lack the basic ability to decide on the trajectory of their own lives. That’s wrong, and it needs to change.

Around 222 million women in the developing world want to delay or end childbearing but lack access to contraception. In the United States, nearly every other pregnancy is unplanned. Those unplanned pregnancies that result in births have lasting consequences far beyond overtaxed resources. Women drop out of school. Their health is compromised. Their potential earnings diminish. Their families struggle. Entire economies are affected when only half of us – the male half – are able to reach our full potential and achieve our dreams.

We can change that. And that’s what Population Connection – Zero Population Growth – fights for.

So yes, Bader Ginsburg is right. There was a group called Zero Population Growth in the 1970s. And we’re still around today. By simply ensuring that every woman who wants to avoid pregnancy can do so, we can help our population peak at a billion more than we have today. And that’s good news, not just for women, but for all of us who share this little planet.

It’s not controversial. It’s common sense.

John Seager is President of Population Connection, formerly known as Zero Population Growth. The organization’s website is populationconnection.org.

Bear Down -- On Birth Control Access?

I’ve heard people say football is our national religion, but this is ridiculous:

On Sunday, the owners of the Chicago Bears hosted a meeting at the team’s practice facility where religious leaders and politicians (bad combo) pounced all over the “Obamacare” requirement that contraception be covered by employer insurance plans.

Chicago birth control fans might be feeling deflated. (Chicago Man/Flickr)

According to the Chicago Tribune, speakers lamented the “eroding freedom to speak in the language of faith in the public square.” How denying women contraception they pay for in their insurance premiums equals “freedom of speech” is anyone’s guess.

And this:

“Some speakers cited evidence of religious persecution in abortion laws, gay marriage and efforts to characterize opponents of the contraception mandate as anti-women.”

So let me get this straight: If a woman makes the extraordinarily personal decision to end a pregnancy, everyone who disagrees with that decision is being religiously persecuted? How do my reproductive decisions affect your religious faith or freedom in the slightest?

Trick question: They don’t.

Apparently, the team’s senior director of special projects serenaded the crowd with a “religious liberty-themed rendition of ‘Bear Down, Chicago Bears,’” which sounds absolutely hideous and should qualify as “religious persecution” itself, if we’re going by the Bears event speakers’ standards.

So add the Chicago Bears to the list of employers who seem to think they should decide whether or not their employees get birth control. So far, the Bears’ owners are just complaining, not suing. Here are some employers who’ve taken the additional step of challenging the Affordable Care Act in court:

• Craft supplies purveyor Hobby Lobby of Oklahoma City. The company’s founder, David Green says: “Hobby Lobby has always been a tool of the Lord’s work. But now our faith is being challenged by the federal government. We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”
• Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., of Highland Illinois. The firm’s owners, Cyril and Jane Korte, “acknowledge in their complaint that their company’s current group plan includes coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and abortion. They discovered this in August and claim it ‘is an error that is contrary to what plaintiffs want based on their religious beliefs.’” Awkward!
• Tyndale House Publishers of Carol Stream, Illinois. The book publisher apparently doesn’t publish any gynecological texts given that they refer to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception provision as “the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate.” Emergency contraception – which is covered under “Obamacare,” works by preventing fertilization, not implantation.

I’ve long argued that one way to end the “religious persecution” of employers being required to offer health insurance that covers – you know, health care – is to divorce health care from employers entirely. Single-payer health care! Suppose the employers suing the government over “Obamacare” would go for that?

--  Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Making the Population Connection at Columbus EcoSummit

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Population Connection is getting our message this week at the EcoSummit in Columbus, Ohio. There's an amazing number of experts here from more than 70 countries discussing ecology, sustainability and how we can protect the planet in a world of more than 7 billion people.

Rebecca Harrington is Population Connection's national field coordinator.

Our own national field coordinator, Rebecca Harrington, is on hand to talk with EcoSummit participants about Population Connection's mission: Advocating for universal access to voluntary family planning programs. She took time between handing out information (and stickers! And T-shirts! And reusable shopping bags!) to answer a few questions:

Q: What are you doing this week at EcoSummit?
A: We are sharing Population Connection's materials with researchers and students from around the globe and raising awareness about population issues. We're also trying to get them engaged with grassroots work we're doing in Columbus and other cities.

Q: What grassroots work are you doing in Columbus?
A: Population Connection works to engage local activists and students in the suburbs of Columbus, Minneapolis and Seattle on the importance of voluntary family planning through advocacy training sessions, film screenings and discussion groups on campus. We also recruit students and adults to come to D.C. for Population Connection's Capitol Hill Days.

Q: How are the crowds reacting to Population Connection's mission of voluntary access to family planning?
A: Positively. The crowd here seems on board with our mission and the work we're doing. They definitely have an understanding of population issues beyond the basics, which is encouraging.

Q: When you're not at conferences, what else do you do in your job with Population Connection?
A: I'm out in the field -- traveling around the country hosting community events such as documentary film screenings, panel discussions with family planning providers, classroom presentations and advocacy trainings, among other things.

Q: Why are you interested in population?
A: I care very deeply about the health and wellbeing of women everywhere. I believe access to family planning is a fundamental right and need. Decisions on how to plan your family are incredibly personal and should not be legislated or directed by lawmakers. When women are able to control the reproductive aspect of their lives, they're more likely to pursue education, be economically self-sufficient, and ultimately attain their goals.

Sex, Lies and an Awful Video

Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Part of my job with a family planning advocacy organization involves keeping an eye on what the other side is up to, crazy videos included. And this one is a real doozy.

The video, called “You Deserve to Know the Truth: Contraception” (catchy!) was uploaded to YouTube by an organization called Come Unity in Truth on Sept. 26 and mentioned by @LifeSite as a “GREAT new teaching video on the harms of contraception.”

Well, I have a few words for it, and “great” isn’t one of them. Perhaps “misleading.” “Ridiculous.” “Offensive.” And plain old “wrong.” Here are the “facts” it gives:

• When women use the birth control pill, they are no longer desirable to men. While some studies have shown that altering women’s hormones might slightly change the laws of attraction, humans aren’t animals. We don’t solely rely on hormones when choosing mates. Yet the video’s makers present this laughable scenario:  “What’s a man to do when the majority of women are contracepting, and he no longer finds them desirable?” More women than ever are using IUDs. Perhaps our poor man will meet one of them?
• Because of that, women who use contraception have to dress all naughty to get male attention. In the video’s words: “contracepting women degrade themselves through immodest dress” in order to make up for the fact that men don’t find them attractive anymore. See! Rush Limbaugh was right!
• The World Health Organization has classified contraception as a Class 1 carcinogen. Yes, sort of. The WHO says that combined estrogen and progestin can slightly increase the risk of liver, breast and cervical cancer, but they also PROTECT against endometrial and ovarian cancer. And the studies were done on pills with up to 4 times the amount of hormones women take in today’s oral contraceptives.
• 7-12 million babies are killed by the pill every year. Since pregnancy begins at implantation, according to legitimate medical organizations, I’m not sure what “babies” they’re talking about. The source is listed as the book “Infant Homicides Through Contraceptives” by Bogomir Kuhar, a hawker of “pro-life/pro-family vitamins” and founder of Pharmacists for Life, which fights for refusal clauses so your friendly local druggist can refuse to fill your birth control prescription. There’s an unbiased source!
• There is no over-population problem! This is a favorite argument of the “pro-lifers”: The world’s entire population could fit in Texas! Sure – if you don’t need any food, water, energy or other natural resources. In fact, we’d need four earths if all 7 billion humans lived like Americans do.
• The inventor of the birth control pill blames his invention for “demographic catastrophe.” Completely false. Carl Djerassi debunked that here in 2009. The anti-contraception crowd knowingly takes him out of context.
• “We’re contracepting ourselves out of existence.” Not even close. There are 7 billion people on the planet now, as I mentioned before. The United Nations projects that we’ll have at least 9 billion by 2050 – and possibly even 11 billion if everyone watches this video. I’ve never been good at math, but I do know that 11 is bigger than 7.
• 30-150 million children have died because of IVF. Only if by “child” you mean “embryo,” and even that appears to be a major exaggeration.
• Contraception “pollutes the heart” and rejects the “will of God.” The video also says that with contraception, “we allow passion to take over reason, and our actions become more like animals than humans,” and that contraception will lead to bestiality and pedophilia. The old slippery slope argument.
• Sterilization has resulted in 223 million infertile couples. Stop me if I’m mistaken, but isn’t that’s the whole point of sterilization?
• “If you had a valuable racehorse, because of its worth, you would want it to have as many offspring as possible.” Last time I checked, I’m not a racehorse.
• “We should want to procreate – knowing that every person has a unique and immortal soul.” Well, many people DON’T want to have kids – for a variety of reasons. Videos like this one try to make them feel bad about it, but there’s nothing wrong with it. No source was provided for the “unique and immortal soul” part. Imagine that!
• “Pregnancy is not a risk – it’s a privilege.” Untrue. Pregnancy is always a risk. Depending on where you live and the care you receive, it can be a huge risk. Complications include ectopic pregnancy, fetal growth restriction, gestational hypertension, incompetent cervix, miscarriage, placenta accreta, placental abruption, RH factor, gestational diabetes, hyperemesis gravidarum, placenta previa, preeclampsia, toxoplasmosis and fistula, to name a few.
• Contraception = sin, and churches that are OK with it are putting the pleasure of man above the law of God. When everything else fails, try guilt!

The video ends with this gem: “If someone you know is contracepting, tell them to stop. It will destroy them.” Unlike unintended pregnancies and unwanted children, which are totally awesome!

Whew! So … seen any good movies recently?

New Study: American Women Use Contraception for Great Reasons!

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

I’m not usually a big proponent of made-up holidays (International Talk Like a Pirate Day and National Donut Day excluded) but I can TOTALLY get behind this one:  Tomorrow -- Sept. 26 -- is World Contraception Day! Yessss!

I'm a huge fan of family planning. Contraception has allowed me to choose the direction of my life rather than have only one option – motherhood. Given my lifelong disinterest in parenthood, I’ve instead chosen to focus on being a wife, writer, employee, volunteer and cool (I hope) auntie to seven great nieces and nephews.

I’m not alone. A new study just out from the Guttmacher Institute proves what I've suspected all along: American women use contraception to  -- wait for it – “better achieve their life goals.” Whoa.

"We can wait to have a kid until we're ready? YES!" (Mathias Kunzli/Flickr)

(Of course, some conservatives argue that women shouldn’t have any life goals beyond being a wife and mother, but I’d kindly suggest that they have at it if they'd like but let the rest of us live our lives how we see fit, thank you very much.)

Tidbits from the study:

• 63% of women surveyed say contraception has helped them better take care of themselves and their families – including the kids they’ve already got.
• 56% say contraception has allowed them to support themselves financially.
• 51% say contraception has allowed them to complete their education. Those silly women thinking they need college degrees!
• 50% say contraception has allowed them to get or keep a job.

Among reasons women said they used contraception were that they could not afford a baby (65%), they weren’t ready to have children (63%), to have better control over their lives (60%) and wanting to wait until their lives are more stable to add a baby to it (60%).

Those sound like really responsible reasons to me! And here I thought we were all using birth control to engage in wanton hedonism. Oh well.