No Holding Hands in Tennessee?

Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Sometimes, the only logical reaction to a story is “WHAT?”

Tennessee just enacted one of the strictest abstinence education laws in the nation. In fact, the law bans teachers from talking about “gateway sexual activity” without defining what, exactly, “gateway sexual activity” is, leading opponents of the law to brand it the “no holding-hands bill.”

"Gateway sexual activity"? (Katie Tegtmeyer/Foter)

And you guessed it: Tennessee has one of the highest teen birth rates in the nation. Clearly, Tennessee teenagers are doing a lot of hand-holding. Or something.

I’m not here to pick on Tennessee – it’s not the only state that tries to tackle teen pregnancy with the “Just Say No” approach. The problem is, teens AREN’T saying no. Teens – including Tennessee ones – have sex. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 70% of American teenagers have had intercourse by their 19^th birthday, beginning at age 17 on average.

Population Connection supports fact-based, unbiased comprehensive sex education. Why? Because it works.  One recent study found that teenagers who were taught both about contraception and the benefits of abstinence delayed having sex, protected themselves when they did and had the healthiest partnerships. Students who received only abstinence education also delayed having sex, but when they did, they were less likely to use contraception. And we all know what that leads to, which is great when you’re ready, but difficult when you’re not.  

Melinda Gates: Family Planning Advocate

By Alice Taylor, Population Connection Intern

NOTE: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is co-hosting an international family planning summit in London on July 11, World Population Day.

Whenever I’m in the mood to have my mind simultaneously expanded and blown, I turn to TED Talks.  For people unfamiliar with the premise, they are videos of speeches delivered at annual conferences centered on the basic theme of “ideas worth spreading.” Ranging from humorous to heartbreaking, they tackle key issues that impact our world today. 

Melinda Gates talks about family planning. (Gates Foundation)

It is unsurprising, then, that a recent talk focused on the undeniable importance of putting family planning back on the global agenda. In a 25-minute speech, Melinda Gates makes a strong argument for why access to contraceptives -- an issue that has increasingly polarized politicians -- should, at its core, be noncontroversial. It is, in her words, about “giving women a power to save their lives, save their children’s lives, and give their family the best possible future.”

She offers some sobering statistics to underscore her life-saving argument for contraceptives, namely that, out of women experiencing unintended pregnancies, every year:  

• 100,000 die in childbirth.
• Another 600,000 have their baby die within its first month of life.

And yet, she emphasizes that the discussion of family planning is about more than the statistics. It’s about impacting change on the individual level. Impacting change for people like Marianne, a Kenyan woman who explained her desire for contraceptives by stating that, “I want to bring every good thing to this child before I have another.”

And that simple sentiment, borne out of a mother’s love, should not be controversial.

Need by the Numbers

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

The Guttmacher Institute – guru of all things reproductive health – has a new report out on the demand for contraception in the developing world – and the news isn’t all that peachy. Here are the numbers you need to know:

222 Million: The number of women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy but aren’t using modern contraception. That's not good.

56: The percentage of married women in Southeast Asia using modern contraception.

Less than 10: The percentage of married women in Western Africa using modern contraception. Yikes.

4 billion: The amount in dollars spent per year to provide the current level of contraceptive care in the developing world.

8.1 billion: The amount in dollars per year it would take to fully meet the need for contraception in the developing world.

11.3 billion: The amount in dollars per year an $8.1 billion annual investment in contraception would save. Family planning saves money, folks!

21 million: The number of unplanned births that would be avoided.

26 million: The number of abortions that would be avoided – including 16 million unsafe procedures.

79,000: The number of women whose lives would be saved.

Would doubling our investment in family planning funding be worth it? My sources say yes!

Time for a Rio Focus on Population

Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Happy Rio week! Wednesday marks the start of the Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Our newest issue of The Reporter is focused on sustainable development, demographics, and how the two are linked. And boy, are they linked.

What exactly is sustainable development? Here’s one quick definition:

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Sounds good, right? It’s a laudable goal, and one we’ll be hard-pressed to achieve without a renewed focus on population stabilization.

Luckily, a lot of really smart people are pointing out the need for reproductive health care to have a prominent place in the Rio discussions.  One of them is Tewodros Melesse, director-general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. He’s got a great post in the BMJ blog that you should check out.

Here’s Melesse’s money quote:

Across the world more than two in five pregnancies are unplanned. Clearly this is a wasted opportunity to boost development and (stabilize) population growth—through something women want and need—the ability to decide when to become pregnant.

Amen to that.

So keep an eye on the news from Rio this week, and see if voluntary family planning gets the attention it needs and deserves. You can also follow the Rio conference on Facebook and Twitter. What do you want to see world leaders focus on in Rio?

Talking Trash

By Amy Phillips Bursch, Media Relations Manager

Let’s talk trash! This kind, not that kind. Sorry to get your hopes up.

So what does garbage have to do with human population growth? Plenty. The more people on the planet, the more garbage they produce, and we’re already producing A LOT of garbage. One Saturday morning trip to your local landfill will convince you of that fact.

According to a new study out this month from the World Bank:

Currently, world cities generate about 1.3 billion (tons) of solid waste per year. This volume is expected to increase to 2.2 billion (tons) by 2025. Waste generation rates will more than double over the next twenty years in lower income countries.

All this garbage isn’t just ugly. According to the study, it’s also dangerous and expensive:

Locally, uncollected solid waste contributes to flooding, air pollution, and public health impacts such as respiratory ailments, diarrhea and dengue fever. In lower income country cities, solid waste management is usually a city’s single largest budgetary item.

Reducing, reusing and recycling helps reduce the volume, of course. But unless we want our planet to look like this is 2050 or so, one of the best ways we have to cut down on the waste we produce is to slow population growth. How? It’s not that difficult – or even that expensive.

In fact, for every  investment of $100 million in family planning, 3.6 million women are able to choose the size of their families, and 2.1 million unintended pregnancies are avoided. It’s a relatively tiny price tag for better lives – and a cleaner planet, too.

Then after slowing population growth, we just need to get everyone to live like the trash-free Johnson family of Mill Valley, Calif., and WALL-E will have to find a new line of work.

The Huber Foundation Continues Longtime Support of Population Connection

By Natalie Widel, Development Associate

The Huber Foundation has supported Population Connection for nearly thirty years. This year, the Foundation contributed a $250,000 grant toward our ongoing program activities to stabilize population growth. This generous gift will enhance our education and advocacy efforts, which are part of Population Connection’s campaign to make population integral to the national discourse on environmental protection and reproductive/human rights.

Population Connection’s Population Education program reaches over three million students every year with fact-based curricula focused on population trends and their effects on people and our planet. Additional funding allows us to expand our volunteer teacher-trainer network through national workshops and staff visits to regions with large concentrations of interested teachers. We currently benefit from the in-kind contributions of more than 420 professional educators. These educators provide additional teachers with the training and materials necessary to teach students in kindergarten through twelfth grade about population growth in their classrooms.

Additionally, the Huber Foundation’s support assists our Government Relations and Grassroots staff working in three target congressional swing districts. As part of our “Double the Money” campaign, we seek to convince voters and members of Congress to support an increase in U.S. assistance for international family planning programs to $1 billion annually. Thanks to the Huber Foundation’s sizeable grant, Population Connection will be able to reach key constituents in these three target districts with the message that population stabilization is critical to solving many global challenges.

If you would like information about making a major gift to Population Connection, please contact Shauna Scherer, Major Gifts Manager, at sscherer@popconnect.org.

House Panel Approves Big Increase for International Family Planning

By Brian Dixon

Yesterday, the House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, led by Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), approved $735 million for international family planning programs in 2011 – an $86.5 million, or 13 percent, increase over the current funding level.

It is also nearly $20 million more than President Obama requested. This commitment to family planning is very welcome and is especially impressive given the fact that the overall funding for international affairs is $4 billion less than the President sought.

We are, however, disappointed that the bill does not include a provision that would prevent the future imposition of the odious Global Gag Rule. Ninety-one House members, led by Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY), sent a letter to Chairwoman Lowey urging her to include this language in the bill. Without this provision, it is likely that the new resources will not be used as effectively as they could. The threat of a future reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule is causing many aid officials to avoid making grants to organizations – among the most experienced and effective family planning providers in the world – that may be disqualified again in just a few years.

The Senate is not expected to consider their version of the bill for several more weeks. We will urge the Senate to support similar funding levels for family planning programs, and to again include a permanent end to the Global Gag Rule in their version of the bill, as they did last year.

We will continue to follow the appropriations process as it unfolds, and we will keep you up to date on how you can help.