Thanks to Marianne Ward for this follow up commentary from Marni Fogelson-Teel on the Duggar family population explosion.
—————————

When People and several other popular media outlets heralded the news that the Duggar family in Arkansas welcomed their 17th child earlier this month, my reaction was not necessarily that of awe or amazement. It was anxiety. While the Duggar family is certainly an anomaly, it would become more than slightly problematic if everyone exercises their reproductive rights and simply has as many children as they physically can.

A recent study from the Optimum Population Trust pointed out that tactics for combating climate change “almost universally ignore population: it is seen as too sensitive and too controversial.” Personal birth rate and contraceptive choice are contentious subjects for many people because reproductive decisions often result from religious or cultural traditions. However, this decision has a huge impact on more than just one’s own family. In his hugely popular book The End Of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey Sachs explains how the most poor countries, “are stuck with fertility rates of five or more. On average, a mother is raising at least two girls, and in some cases three girls or more. In those circumstances, national populations double each generation.”

For full article, visit:

Many thanks to Sandy Irvine for sending the link to the website on Ecological Sustainability. You can find the home page at http://www.ecological-sustainability.info/. I found the statement in the “About Us” section most interesting.

You can link to it at http://www.sandyirvine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/PDFs/About%20Us.pdf.

New Training Manual Helps Mobilize Muslim Religious Leaders for RH/FP. Religious leaders play a key role in shaping the health-seeking behavior of their communities-particularly with respect to family planning and reproductive health, topics where science, religion, culture and morality profoundly intersect.
http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow

Below is a paper by Martha Campbell, “Why the Silence on Population Issues.” A second piece on this same topic was sent to me by Luigi De Marchi, founder of the Italian Planned Parenthood Federation. He broadcast this editorial on May 5, 2008 over Italy’s Liberal Radio.

Why the Silence on Population (PDF, 178KB)

World Crisis (Word doc., 33KB)

Thanks to Ben Zuckerman for this editorial, which was distributed to 800 newspapers and magazines in the U.S. through the Cagle Syndication Service.
—————-

Ever since my youth I’ve been a numbers type of guy. As a teenager in the 1950s I discovered that the typical American woman was having 3 or 4 children and I calculated that the USA was in for a big population explosion. At about the same time, Chinese women were having even more children than Americans. The fact that these two countries together are currently responsible for half of the entire anthropogenic contribution to increasing atmospheric carbon is partially a result of the large population increases engendered by these high fertilities.

For full article and an accompanying editorial cartoon, visit http://www.caglepost.com

Additional related editorial cartoons can be viewed at http://www.caglecartoons.com/column.

Dave Paxson, John Feeney and I participated in a 90-minute radio program on April 20 on population issues produced by Free Range Thought in Media. You can listen to the program – one of several in a series on population – at http://www.freerangethought.com/.

At the same site, you can also listen to an interview with David Pimentel of Cornell University discussing population and the current food crisis.

Part one of the April 20 interview can be linked to directly at: http://www.freerangethought.com/Audio/Ryerson_Paxson_Feeney_P1_042008.mp3.

And this is the link for part 2: http://www.freerangethought.com/Audio/Ryerson_Paxson_Feeney_P2_042008.mp3.

The interview is also posted on the PMC website by clicking here.

Thanks to Gene Nelson for this article and link. Also see his comment at the end of the article. This is from the 1 May 2008 Washington Post. Gene added a link to CIA Director Hayden’s prepared 30 April 2008 comments. There is such a contradiction between this view by the Administration’s CIA Chief and the Bush Administration’s lack of support for family planning information and services.

http://www.washingtonpost.com

The Bush administration is apparently looking to start yet another assault in the continuing war on reproductive rights and family planning services by proposing sweeping new restrictions on recipients of health-related federal funding.

Now is the time to use your voice and tell the administration that this blatant undermining of family values will not stand. Ignoring the voice of 90 percent of the electorate is an outrage and our leaders should know. Click here to send a letter to Secretary Leavitt and demand that these draft regulations never come to fruition.

For full article, visit:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog

For the form to submit comments to Secretary Leavitt, see http://capwiz.com/nfprha/issues.

Thanks to Jane Roberts for this Population Day editorial.
—————————

On June 26, the Bush administration, for the seventh year in a row, refused to release congressionally approved funds for the United Nations Population Fund.

The fund, supported by 181 countries last year, not only offers reproductive health care and family planning in 151 countries but also studies population and poverty trends. It’s a good time to talk about population. The fate of women is central to any population debate.

The planet is home to 6.7 billion people, and about 75 million more births occur each year than deaths. Ninety-eight percent of this growth happens in the poorest countries.

For full article, visit:
http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/localviews

Youth InfoNet 47 – June 2008

This issue of the monthly e-newsletter on youth reproductive health and HIV prevention features 13 program resources with Web links, and 13 journal article summaries on research from China, El Salvador, Namibia, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, and Zambia.

© USAID, IYWG, INFO Project, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Communication Programs with content managed by FHI 2008

For more information, visit:
http://www.infoforhealth.org/youthwg/pubs/YouthInfoNet/YIN47.shtml