As we celebrate the 37th Earth Day, the world is increasingly-albeit belatedly-focusing on how to address the growing problem of human-induced climate change and the environmental destruction that contributes to it. One critical, but often overlooked, part of any comprehensive program to tackle climate change is addressing gender inequality-particularly in terms of reproductive health-in the developing world.

"I just heard of effective use of condoms, but I never knew how to use them." These are the words of Juliet Awour, a Kenyan woman featured in PAI's new documentary, Abstaining from Reality: U.S. Restrictions on HIV Prevention. Neither Juliet nor her boyfriend knew how to use a condom, so he took it off during sex. As a result, Juliet became pregnant and contracted HIV the first time she had sex. Her story illuminates one of the gravest problems with a U.S. HIV prevention strategy that teaches abstinence-only: What do individuals know about HIV protection when they are no longer abstinent?

Population Action International Commends Lawsuit Challenging Ideological Restrictions on U.S. HIV/AIDS Funds PAI commends the lawsuit filed yesterday challenging the constitutionality of U.S. restrictions recently extended to U.S.-based organizations that provide HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Even as President Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy (also known as the Global Gag Rule) in January 2001, the White House asserted that the President supports U.S. family planning assistance efforts, stating that “he knows that one of the best ways to prevent abortion is by providing quality voluntary family planning services.” Four years later, the President's support for safe and voluntary contraception is no longer so clear or concise.

Those Who Will Suffer are Those Most At-Risk of AIDS Since 2003, the Bush Administration has restricted funds to foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) combating HIV/AIDS by requiring these groups to have an official policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking. This anti-prostitution loyalty oath did not previously extend to U.S. organizations because of justifiable concerns about its constitutionality, but domestic HIV/AIDS NGOs now are being required to make the same pledge or lose critical federal funds, due to the Justice Department's reversal of its original interpretation of the policy.

A Statement from Amy Coen, President/CEO, Population Action International We were hoping that President Bush would prove advocates for international family planning and reproductive health programs wrong this year and approve U.S. funding for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). The decision, though not unexpected, really demonstrates this administration's penchant for putting politics ahead of people and plain common sense. Most importantly, it means that countless women in developing countries will be deprived of desperately needed reproductive health care – services that so many women in the Western world take for granted.

Population Action International (PAI) today expressed its dismay over a House Appropriations Committee vote of 26-32 against the Lowey amendment to provide $25 million in U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for work in six countries with extreme family planning needs and significant national security implications. The countries included in the amendment were: Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Pakistan, Kenya and Tanzania.

PAI Asks to “See the Check” for UNFPA Population Action International responded with guarded enthusiasm to the enactment of the FY 2004 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which allocates $432 million for international family planning programs, and earmarks support for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Study is the First Conducted on the Effects of the Policy in Africa and Eastern Europe The Bush Administration's Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, endangers the lives and health of women, children and families in some of the world's poorest countries, a new report released today finds. Access Denied: U.S. Restrictions on International Family Planning takes an in-depth look into the policy's effects — and comes less than a month after the President extended the Global Gag Rule to State Department family planning funds.

Today's decision by the Bush Administration to extend the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, to State Department family planning programs has been strongly condemned by Population Action International (PAI).