Suzanne Petroni's blog

Rather than seeking a return to "the way things were under the Clinton Administration... plus some," sexual and reproductive health advocates should use this time to believe that we can achieve great gains for women.

It’s crucial to align domestic and international family planning and reproductive health movements in order to save women’s lives.

Suzanne Petroni is a Senior Program officer for the Summit Foundation in Washington, DC, where she manages the foundation's Global Population and Youth Leadership program.

It's been interesting to read the exchanges here on PAI's latest report, while at the same time researching the history of U.S. international family planning policy.

I'm back in school to take what I've learned in ten years in the population field, add some knowledge and skills, and ultimately—hopefully!—come up with a way to help move our field out of its current political morass. My hypothesis is that, as a field, we're using the same arguments and strategies that we've used for decades, and as a result, we're not gaining ground; rather, we're losing it.

Finally, we have a vision! After years of asking what has regrettably been a rhetorical question, "We know what we're against, but do we actually know what we're for?" the Center for American Progress has provided an answer. In issuing "More Than a Choice: A Progressive Vision for Reproductive Health and Rights" last week, the Center lays out a new approach to reproductive rights.

Kudos to the Center for prioritizing this issue (it's still at the top of their website after three days!), and to author Jessica Arons, for laying out an agenda that can help us shift the debate and bring a new generation to our side. Arons moves us one step further down the path of broadening the discourse beyond its historic myopic focus on abortion.