May 14, 2013
by Patty Brown
OK, more specifically, it’s time to talk about reproduction. According to United Nations estimates we have reached a human population of 7 Billion as of Oct 31st, the Day of 7 Billion.
Sierra Club members in Kansas City used this opportunity to spread awareness of the issue (see photo). We passed out 720 condoms donated by the Center for Biological diversity and packaged in a humorous way with various endangered species such as a polar bear with the words, “Wrap with Care, Save the Polar Bear”. These were great conversation starters.
We told passersbys that better education, opportunities and health care, including contraception, has allowed women the freedom to go from an average fertility rate of 5 children in 1950 to the current 2.5. When given a choice, women want more for the children they have rather than more children.
Women should be trusted with the freedom to control their reproductive destinies. 215 million women want access to birth control, but do not have that access. Rather than increase
what the U.S. provides for international family planning to $1 billion, our House of Representatives wants to totally defund these services. In this country, in an escalation of the war on women’s reproductive freedom, a record-breaking almost 500 bills to limit reproductive services have been submitted during the first half of 2011, with 162 enacted. Several states are banning funding of Planned Parenthood.
Increased family planning can prevent death due to giving birth, disease, lack of drinking water and food, and resource wars. It can preserve habitat to save endangered species. Slowing population growth could provide about a fourth of emissions cuts needed by 2050 to avoid the worst of climate change.