Title X Family Planning Grants for Low-Income Americans Save Taxpayers Money
The House Appropriations Committee deems family planning for low-income Americans a “low-priority” according to its draft FY 2018 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS) funding bill, released yesterday and being marked up today in subcommittee. Ughhhhhhh. Specifically, the offensive bill calls for “An elimination of all funding for the controversial Family Planning (Title […]
Recognizing the Importance of Family Planning on this World Population Day
Today is World Population Day—a day when the international health and development communities focus on the urgency and importance of population issues. This year’s theme is “Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations.” In its latest analysis of the data, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that meeting the current unmet need for family planning and providing full […]
Unmet Need for Family Planning Declines to 214 Million
Trump’s Foreign Aid Policies Threaten to Reverse Progress
The Guttmacher Institute has released new, very promising, data in its 2017 iteration of Adding It Up: Investing in Contraception and Maternal and Newborn Health.[i] Namely, that despite the fact that the number of women of reproductive age (15-49) in the developing world continues to grow by an estimated 12 million every year, the number […]
World Population Grew by 35 Million MORE than Expected, According to U.N.
There are 35 million more people on the planet in 2017, according to the latest UN population data, than there were projected to be just two years ago. That’s like an extra Morocco, that in 2015 demographers didn’t expect to exist today. Every two years, the United Nations Population Division revises its data estimates and […]
Another Bad Idea: Appointing an Abstinence-only Zealot to Manage the Nation’s Sex Ed Programs
“Last week, President Donald Trump appointed a longstanding advocate of abstinence sex education to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and leftwing groups are furious.” You’ve got that right, Breitbart. Furious is how anyone with a brain capable of critical thinking feels about this appointment. Valerie Huber was co-founder and president/CEO of Ascend, […]
Are We Slowing Population Growth?
Earlier this week, I wrote about how Population Connection works to slow population growth. This post addresses how we measure the impact of our work. We can’t estimate how many unintended pregnancies we’ve prevented, the way clinics can do, for example. Coming up with metrics for any social movement is difficult, since there are so many […]
How Does Population Connection Work for a Stable Population if It Doesn’t Provide Family Planning Services?
It’s true that Population Connection doesn’t provide health services. We are not medical professionals—we don’t develop new methods of birth control or conduct vasectomy clinics or even typically hand out condoms. And yes, family planning services and women’s desire to use them are what ultimately lower birthrates and bring our world closer to a stable […]
Should the United States Should Stop Incentivizing Childbearing with Tax Advantages?
If so, it’s not a hill we’re willing to die on. We are often asked why we don’t lobby for an end to “government incentives for people to have children.” Some believe that the tax breaks people get in the United States might lead them to have more children than they would otherwise have, and […]
And the Winners Are….
Climate change, ocean health, rapid urbanization—each of these major global challenges are affected and exacerbated by human population growth. Population Education’s World of 7 Billion student video contest challenged students to tackle one of these topics by creating short, creative videos addressing the issue and offering at least one idea for a sustainable solution. More […]
Is Population Connection Pro-Choice?
Yes. When I’m standing in front of Planned Parenthood in Portland, Maine, where I’m a patient escort, the protesters go on and on about sexual immorality and not punishing babies conceived in sin (fornication), etc. If a woman has been raped, she should carry her attacker’s fetus to term and give the baby up for […]
