For Release February 1, 2009
Citiwire.net
Largely invisible during the general election fray, the abortion issue surfaced suddenly during President Obama’s first days in office as he revoked the so-called “gag” rule that has prevented the United States from funding family planning services around the world in cases where agencies offer abortion services or counseling of any kind.
Additionally, Mr. Obama declared his intention to restore American funding for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA)–a collaboration of 180 other donor nations that have been providing family planning assistance in 154 countries in need, the goals ranging from cutting back on the need for abortions to reducing poverty to improving the health of women and children, including prevention of HIV/AIDS.
These actions were read by many to be a revival of partisan divides that have played political football with women’s lives and their reproductive rights since the first imposition of the gag rule by President Reagan in the 80′s.
But there is a huge difference today. We have entered into a deeply imperiled century–environmentally, economically and demographically. This new president was making an urgent and humane effort to position the United States as a responsible global partner and leader.
Think of the stakes. The earth’s population has tripled to 6.7 billion from its 1950 level of 2.2 billion. The mass of humanity of which we’re all part is expected to reach a stunning 9.2 billion in 2050. Much of that growth will be rural inhabitants, seeking opportunity, pouring into the “smaller” cities and towns of the developing world, the 500,000-to-1 million range–a category of cities that often lack the most basic infrastructure, in parts of the world most likely to be severely affected (and afflicted) by climate change. Natural increase in population will intensify given the massive numbers of young people migrating.
If we keep on this path, New York City-based demographer Joel Cohen told a gathering at the Rockefeller Foundation’s “Global Urban Summit” in Italy, the world will have to build one city of 1 million people every week for the next 43 years. “Is this,” he asks, “feasible– physically, environmentally, financially, socially?”
Even seemingly modest shifts in birthrates, Cohen noted, can have momentous consequences. If women, on statistical average, have half a child more than now predicted, then the world population by 2050 would soar to 10.6 billion. Conversely, if they choose to have a half child less, then the global population will rise to a comparatively more manageable 7.7 billion.
Cities, with their steep population ascent, seem to epitomize the quandary of the century. Yet if cities are the problem, they’re also the solution. Typically fertility rates are lower in urban areas. Services of existing government services and non-government organizations can be leveraged to reach more people more easily. Cities are early adopters of change. They offer greater access to jobs and income, education and health care. And they offer better opportunities for social mobilization and empowerment.
Indeed, central to the challenge of successful cities–and taming global poverty and population growth–are the rights of women and girls. Their access to family planning services not only contributes to their own health and future, but is central to social stability, to overcoming poverty, to economic vitality and managing limited resources. With education, greater opportunities and independence, women organize communities, find work, provide better lives for their families.
Yet according to the UNFPA State of World Population report, 60 percent of the world’s poorest people are women and girls. They represent two-thirds of the 960 million adults around the world who cannot read are women. Seventy percent of children who do not go to school are girls.
In her Senate confirmation hearings to become Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton spoke of her “particular concern” for “the plight of women and girls who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. I say,” she added: “When the world takes care of women, women take care of the world.”
According to Guttmacher Institute and UNFPA statistics, expanding reproductive health counseling to some 200 million women who currently lack it would avert 23 million unplanned births, 22 million abortions, 7 million miscarriages, 1.4 million infant deaths, 142,000 pregnancy-related deaths, and 505,000 children from losing their mothers.
If there ever were a deep moral issue–showing how grievously mistaken our “right to life” advocates have been in using their anti-abortion mantra and political muscle to hobble critically needed international funding–this is it.
With the brand of American leadership President Obama has already taken on this issue, this country can again be the friend of women across the globe, and help lead humanity, toward a more sustainable future.
Farley M. Peters is a principal of the Citistates Group and a co-author of Century of the City: No Time To Lose, the book which grew out of the Rockefeller Foundation’s “Global Urban Summit” in Italy in 2007. Her e-mail is fpeters@citistates.com.
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