family planning

The state of Texas has been overruled when it comes to a bill blocking funding from any health care provider that also provides abortion.

December 1st marks World AIDS Day and this year’s theme is “Getting to Zero.” Much of this day will be focused on a celebration of new technology and science that can help prevent HIV through daily treatment and male circumcision. And we should celebrate those advances – but we should also not lose sight of women who need both family planning and HIV services.

By drastically cutting family planning funds, there are now less options in the state than ever before.

President Bush praises family planning?  On World Contraception Day? Don't fall off your chair. Nearly 40 years ago, ensuring universal access to family planning services was a cause that card-carrying Republicans were actually proud to embrace. So we're talkin' President George Bush, Senior, before he was President.

Follow Jodi Jacobson on Twitter, @jljacobson

"The one that has an abortion is treated as…as bad, as a killer and…the other one is…is a good woman, she has a good heart, she loves children.” Sound familiar? Let’s face it: individuals who have had abortions or provide them are too often labeled, discriminated against and dehumanized.

As part of our series on Seven Billion People, RHRC asks two experts, Dr. Carmen Barroso, Director of International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region, and Carl Pope, former Executive Director and current Chairman of the Sierra Club, to explain the connections between environmental and population issues and how the movements can work together.

Black Swan events are proliferating for many reasons—notably climate change and the growing scale and interconnectedness of the human enterprise. World population doubled in the last half-century to just under seven billion people, so there are simply more people living in harm’s way, on geologic faults and along vulnerable coastlines. In effect, we have re-engineered the planet and ushered in a new era of radical instability. Advancing and securing women's rights are a key aspect of the solution to these problems.

Years of misguided U.S. policy such as the Global Gag Rule have contributed to today's crisis in Kenya.

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Just weeks after publication of a major report underscoring the benefits of robust U.S. investment in family planning worldwide, the GOP-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee voted in the early hours of the morning today to reinstate the Global Gag Rule with broader and more damaging implications than ever before.

Follow Jodi Jacobson on Twitter, @jljacobson

It's time for acknowledgement of the world’s best-kept little secret—family planning saves lives, boosts economic growth, and makes for a safer world.