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  • Women’s rights are the right way to approach the population issue

    Suzanne Ehlers, president of Population Action International.Suzanne Ehlers, the new 36-year-old president of Population Action International, likes to talk about “the magic of family planning.”  If you give women around the world contraceptive tools and information, they’ll limit the size of their families of their own free choice, and that makes their families healthier, wealthier, […]

  • Birth-control opponents greenwash their message

    Even opponents of birth control are “going green” these days.  The uber-right-wing American Life League, founded by Catholic activists in 1979, launched a “The Pill Kills” campaign in 2008, and this year shifted its message to “The Pill Kills the Environment.” “Study after study has shown how the chemicals from the pill discharge into our […]

  • 50 years after the Pill and this is the best we can do?

    Happy 50th Birthday, Pill.The media are making a big deal out of fêting the Pill on its 50th birthday, but forgive me if I don’t see much reason to celebrate. Of course I’ll grant that the birth control pill has vastly improved the lives of many women — more than 100 million are taking it […]

  • We need birth control, not geoengineering

    I’ve written about my choice not to have children.  What’s all too easy to forget is that many women still don’t have any reasonable choice about their fertility. An estimated 200 million women around the world don’t have access to family-planning tools.  If they did, 52 million unwanted pregnancies could be averted every year, according […]