This blog is intended to go along with Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, by John R. Weeks, published by Cengage Learning. The latest edition is the 13th (it will be out in January 2020), but this blog is meant to complement any edition of the book by showing the way in which demographic issues are regularly in the news.

You can download an iPhone app for the 13th edition from the App Store (search for Weeks Population).

If you are a user of my textbook and would like to suggest a blog post idea, please email me at: john.weeks@sdsu.edu

Monday, May 1, 2017

Trump Picks Woman Who Doesn't Believe in Contraception to Head Federal Family Planning Program

You really cannot make this stuff up!! The Trump administration has just picked a woman who has said that contraception doesn't work to head up the family planning program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Among many media outlets, Huffington Post has the story:
President Donald Trump has appointed Teresa Manning, an anti-abortion activist who has argued that “contraception doesn’t work,” to oversee a federal family planning program for low-income Americans. 
Manning, a former lobbyist with the National Right to Life Committee and legislative analyst for the conservative Family Research Council, will serve as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Population Affairs administers the Title X program, which subsidizes contraception, Pap smears and other preventive health care services for 4 million low-income Americans, roughly half of whom are uninsured.
Manning has said she opposes federal family planning funding, and she has a long history of making false claims about birth control and women’s health.
Manning has referred to abortion as “legalized crime” and mistakenly argued that emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy for up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, is “the destruction of a human life already conceived.” (It’s not.) She has also claimed that the link between abortion and breast cancer is “undisputed,” when there is actually no evidence of a causal relationship between the two.
The assault on women's reproductive rights in this country--an attack which has been ongoing--seems to have reached a new level. To quote from various of Donald Trump's tweets--SAD! [TRAGIC might be the better word, in this case.]

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