101 Case#2 rvsd 0207, p. 1

FAMILY PLANNING POLICY AND THE ENVIROMENT

Case Study by John Petersen, Nancy London and Katy Janda

Note: Although the characters are fictitious, the policies and the facts contained in this case are real.

General Background:

The size of the human population and measures to control population growth have been sensitive and contentious political and social issues since Thomas Malthus published his famous essay in 1798. In An essay on the principle of population, Malthus reasoned that populationhad the capacity to grow geometrically (i.e. 24816)while food production could at best grow arithmetically (1234). The net effect would be that population will eventually outrun food supplyleading to starvation and suffering. Malthusian predictions that mass starvation would occur by the middle of the 19th century were wrong for a variety of reasons, including his inability to anticipate technological advances in farming. Nevertheless, the notion that an increasing human population will eventually outstrip resources and lead to a collapse of the natural environment and human civilization remains a major cause of concern. And the facts for this last century are sobering. The world population has doubled between 1964 (the year John Petersen was born) and 2007, growing from 3.2 to 6.6 billion. With an estimated population of 9.4 billion by 2050[1], the earth will need to produce more food for human beings during the next 40 years than it has in the 10,000 year since the dawn of agriculture. In 1974 Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren introduced a simple model for thinking about the influence of a population on resource consumption[2]. Their so-called, “IPAT” model states that the environmental Impact of a given population is equal to Population x Affluence x Technology[3]. More explicitly, environmental impact is the product of population, consumption per person, and the amount of resources needed, or wastes created for each unit of consumption. Efforts to address the environmental impacts of population may focus on any or the components associated with this equation, or they may focus on increasing the environmental (and technological) resources available. This case studyfocuses on population issues from the perspective of allocation and use of funds by the U.S. to support family planning services in less developed countries.

On January 22nd2001, George W. Bush signed what is known in some circles as the "Mexico City Policy" and in others as the “Global Gag Rule” [4]. The Agency for International Development (USAID), a division of the U.S. state department, provides aid to governments and international organizations that provide family planning services. The Mexico City Policy bars USAID from funding any international family planning groups that support abortion, counsel on abortion, or lobby for abortion rights, even if the organization uses its own funds for these abortion-related services. In September of 2003 Bush issued an executive memorandum extending the restrictions to include all reproductive health care funds administered by the state department (not just funds issues through USAID).

The reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy has had a very real effect on international family planning services. The International Planned Parenthood Federation lost $8 million in U.S. assistance. Local family planning organizations, most with negligible internal funds, also lost funding due to this bill. For example, the Family Planning Association of Nepal, lost $250,000 of aid from USAID because it refused to adhere to the restrictions placed on them.[5] In July of 2002,the Bush administration decided to withhold the United States' entire annual contribution to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) which totaled $34 million. The UNFPA promotes contraception and safe birthing and child care practices in more than 150 countries.

Although the funding restrictions associated with the Mexico City Policy initially only applied to the furnishing of funds for family planning, it has also been imposed on other international health care programs such as those seeking to treat victims of the AIDS pandemic. For example, in 2005, the State Department discontinued funding for a small but well-regarded AIDS program for African and Asian refugees because one of the groups in the project was associated with the UNFPA.[6] Public health officials estimate that world's poorest countries require between 8 billion and 10 billion condoms a year to help stem the spread of the AIDS virus, which newly infects 14,000 people each day. But they receive less than 1 billion, and donations have slipped to 950 million from 970 million in the last decade, according to the United Nations Population Fund.[7]

Less than a month after George W. Bush announced the reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, U.S. Senator, Barbara Boxer (Democrat from CA), authored a bill with bipartisan support entitled, "The Global Democracy Promotion Act" which sought to reverse the Mexico City Policy. Boxer's bill stated that organizations shall not be ineligible for U.S. aid "solely on the basis of health or medical services they offer" so long as these services do not violate the laws of the United States or the country in which the services are being provided.[8]

Since it was first introduced, this bill has developed a bit of history in both the house and the senate. On April 5, 2005, the bill was introduced as an amendment to the Foreign Affairs Authorization Act. The Senate accepted the amendment by a vote of 52-46, but then failed to finalize the underlying bill, leaving the amendment in a non-effective status.On January 22 of 2007 the bill was reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) and lead Republican co-sponsor Chris Shays (R-CT) and the 36 original cosponsors as H.R. bill 619, to be considered in this legislative session[9].

The Scenario:

Four experts with distinct views on population issues have been called to testify before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House committee that has been assigned to review HR 619. As you will read, these experts represent rather firm positions within our society. In order to prevent your home group discussion from degenerating into a polarized debate, each of you is assigned to play two distinct roles in this case.

First, you are assigned one of the stakeholders listed on the pages that follow. Your task here is to "get under the skin" of this person, and at least temporarily, to allow yourself to view the world from his/her perspective. This may be a difficult task for some of you – meet the challenge with methodological belief! As with our first case study, the structure is that you will first meet within expert groups (e.g., members representing each stakeholder meet together) to help each other understand the position and to develop a 3 min testimony which you will then present to your home group. There will be 2 minutes for questions after each presentation.

When you reassemble into your home group, you will only take the position of your character during the periods in which you present that position to the others and answer questions. During the remainder of the time in your home group you will take on your 2nd role. In this role you represent a staff member of a Congressional Representatives who has not made up her mind regarding a position on this bill. This Representative is unable to attend the hearing at which these experts speak, and you are charged with the task of summarizing the strongest points of each position and making an informed recommendation regarding this bill. Your Representative seeks your advice on whether she should reject, abstain, support, co-sponsorand/or suggest amendments to the bill. She also wants recommendations for how to balance the competing interest of her constituents, by offering concessions to or conditional support of each viewpoint. Your case brief should take the form of this summary and recommendation to this Representative. You are free as a group to determine the general political context of the Representative that you advise (e.g. Catholic Democrat, socially liberal Republican, Socialist from Vermont, etc.). You should state your assumptions regarding thisRepresentative’s political views and those of her dominant constituenciesin your brief.

The Assignment:

Each working group is charged with producing a concise two page document (1,300 word limit) with summary recommendations for your Representative. The document should:

  • Provide 1-3 sentences summarizing what the bill is and does.
  • Provide a synthesis of the alternate views that supports your recommendations. Avoid simply restating the facts and statistics presented by the stakeholders; your job is to identify points that the various stakeholders agree on and disagree on with respect to the environment, population, abortion, birth control, women’s education. In this synthesis, describe how the “IPAT” model is related to the arguments you present.
  • Provide a clear recommendation for your Representative (reject, abstain, support, co-sponsor and/or suggest amendments). If you propose amendments, describe how these build on points of agreement and mollify disagreement.
  • Assuming that your Representative adopts the position that you suggest, propose a strategy for how s/he should defend this position to the constituencies represented by these different stakeholders.

I expect all group members to be familiar with key concepts and terms associated with all stakeholders. You need not research further, but if you are interested in the details of the situation, ample additional information is available on the web – links on our class website provide support all four positions. Draw on the readings in creating your brief (particularly the articles by Cohen and Ehrlich & Ehrlich). I expect you to correctly cite at least three relevant sources that include these readings.

The Experts (letters correspond with group members):

A.Harper Nulbert is an attorney with "Population Connection", an organization that advocates policies that lead to population reduction.

B.Abby Belafont is a well-respected women's rights activist. She has worked for a wide variety of non-profit organizations including NOW and Planned Parenthood, and has been called to testify before congress on a number of occasions.

C.Jane Cindercraft is a Catholic nun who has spent her life working on poverty issues in both the developing world and in the United States. Her views on population are based on faith and on her experience.

D.Dr. Julia Kornucopia is a well-known economist at a large state university. She has authored a number of books and papers in which she argues that human ingenuity has and will continue to improve conditions for humans AND the environment.

A. Harper Nulbert

Harper Nulbert could not feel more strongly about an issue. As far as he is concerned all of the major environmental problems we face – global climate change, loss of topsoil, desertification, deforestation, pollution, overgrazing, loss of biodiversity –can be traced to the same causal factor. Human population growth represents THE central environmental problem. Although many of his Harvard-trained classmates now make 6 figures salaries working for big law firms, Nulbert gladly accepted a modestly paid position with Population Connection[10] straight out of law school. His resolve to make a difference on this issue has only grown stronger over the last three years as he has become an increasingly respected member of the organization. Nulbert sees the facts as stark and irrefutable – his goal is to get them across effectively at this hearing. At current growth rates, the world's population could exceed 14 billion by late in the 21st century. [11] This population growth exacerbates each and every one of our major environmental problems. Thus, it is imperative that we work now, at a global scale, to stop population growth.

Adequate family planning resources, including access to safe abortion services are crucial to this agenda. If we do not begin to move aggressively towards zero population growth, there will soon come a day when we will not be able to address the basic, life-sustaining needs of the world's population. At that point, starvation and disease will do a cruel job with a task that we are now unwilling to address responsibly.

Evidence of scarcity and the negative environmental effects of population abound:

  • One sixth of the world's land - almost 2 billion hectares - is now degraded as a result of overgrazing and poor farming practices. Another 16 to 20 million hectares of tropical forests and woodlands are lost each year[12].
  • 166 million people in 18 countries are suffering from water scarcity, while almost 270 million are considered water-stressed[13].
  • 80 countries currently cannot produce enough food to feed their own populations from existing land and water resources[14].
  • 1.1 billion of the world's 6.4 billion people are undernourished and underweight[15].
  • The world population has the strong potential to double again within today's college students' lifetimes.
  • 80% of the original rain forests occupying the earth have been cleared for farming and agriculture in the last century.[16]
  • We currently loose species at a rate of 27,000 per year, the greatest rate of extinction in the last 65 million years. This is largely due to conversion of native ecosystems to human managed ecosystems.[17]

For Nulbert the decision is obvious, we must act immediately to curb our world's population or we will soon face the day when it is impossible to feed everyone and provide them with adequate supplies of clean drinking water. Norbert feels that he owes it to his daughter's future and to the not yet born children to take a strong moral stand in support of HR 619.

B. Abby Belafont

In Belafont's view, the decision that is being made with this bill is not so much about raw population numbers as it is about individual people, and in particular, about the day-to-day struggle of women in the developing world. As a long time women's rights activist, Belafont's goal is to empower women to be able to make choices about their own reproductive health, and to provide women with educational, economic and political opportunity. The evidence is that when women are empowered they inevitably make choices that lead to smaller but healthier families. Only through sufficient education and services will women around the world be able to improve their physical health and psychological well-being. Bush's reenactment of the Mexico City Policy works to prevent the dissemination of this essential information and access to needed services.

In Belafont's view, the facts about women and childbearing tell a sober and compelling story:

  • Deaths. More than 585,000 women die each year from causes related to pregnancy and an estimated 15 times that number suffer from pregnancy-related injuries or infections. These deaths are, not surprisingly, distributed unevenly throughout the world, with 1 in 10,000 women in Northern Europe dying from pregnancy-related complications, as compared to 1 in 23 in Africa. It is estimated that up to a third of these deaths and injuries could be avoided with access to family planning services that would allow women to avoid unwanted pregnancies[18]
  • Termination of pregnancy. Each year, 70,000 women die of unsafe abortions. Almost all of these deaths are in developing countries.[19] Of the 55 million unwanted pregnancies that end in abortion every year, nearly half are illegal procedures, carried out predominantly in the developing world.[20]
  • Education. There is a high correlation between education level attained by women and childbearing practices. In poor countries, every additional year of women's schooling is associated with a 5 to 10% decline in child deaths.[21]
  • Empowerment. Women in many countries with high birth rates tend to want fewer children than their male counterparts. For example, in Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Senegal men want between 2 to 4 more children than their wives do.[22]

Under the Mexico City Policy, certain family planning centers that are affiliated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) will lose funding from the U.S. government, even if these centers do not perform abortions. For example, a family planning center in Guyana, which serves about 10,000 Guyanese women annually, will likely lose some of its funding and cut some of its services due to its affiliation with IPPF. Other family planning clinics that may also lose significant funding include those in Peru, Albania, and Sierra Leone.[23] In 1984, when the Mexico City Policy was first introduced, IPPF lost the equivalent of 25% of its funding.[24]

To Belafont, the cruel irony is that, by limiting access to family planning centers that provide contraceptives and counseling, the number of abortions performed on women will undoubtedly increase, albeit by using unsafe methods.[25] We must not prevent women from gaining access to crucial education and services that will allow them to make choices about their own reproductive health, and potentially, save their lives. Belafont feels that she owes it to her daughter and to the women of the world to take a powerful moral stand in support of HR 619!