OpEds

Every November 13th, we observe Thanks, Birth Control Day. As 99 percent of women in the US will use a contraceptive method at one point or another, birth control should be celebrated. But the Trump administration is doing its best to limit access to contraception at home and abroad. It defies both logic and public opinion. Read More »

The U.S. Supreme Court has not overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but lower courts and statehouses are threatening to turn the clock back nearly 50 years on abortion rights. The fate of Missouri’s only remaining abortion provider, a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, hangs by a thread, awaiting the outcome of a recent arbitration hearing. If it is forced stop performing abortions, Missouri will become the first state without an abortion provider since Roe recognized the right to abortion in America. Read More »

The world is burning. Record or near-record temperatures, combined with drought in many areas, are contributing to yet another record-setting summer for wildfires. California has been largely spared so far this year, but wildfires in the Amazon rainforest and in or near the Arctic Circle are ringing alarm bells, as is a sharp increase in wildfires in Southern Europe. Read More »

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are together carving out a lasting judicial legacy, one with ominous implications for reproductive health and rights. Thirteen right-wing judicial nominees were hastily confirmed before the Senate’s August recess, and Trump nominated 12 more last week to be confirmed when Congress returns on Monday. Thanks to McConnell, the self-proclaimed “grim reaper,” the Senate has become a graveyard for House-passed legislation. Yet simultaneously, it has been quietly approving an alarming number of federal judgeships. Read More »

For a responsible reproductive health care provider, it’s an unthinkable choice: provide patients with the highest standard of medical care and risk losing federal funding, or accept the funding and limit the care. It’s a dilemma a provider should not have to consider, but that was the decision Title X family planning clinics faced this … Read More »

More than the three and half years after negotiators ironed out the Paris Climate Agreement, the temperature in Paris this week soared to an all-time high, 108.7 degrees Fahrenheit, smashing the old record by 4 degrees. At the same time, all-time national highs were set in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. As most businesses and residences in these countries are not equipped with air conditioning, government authorities in Paris and elsewhere issued red alerts. Read More »

World population continues to grow. The latest UN projections, released this week, indicate that we will add another 2 billion people to the planet by 2050 and 3 billion by the end of the century.  While population growth is ebbing in many countries—and even starting to contract in a few—population growth in some countries remains brisk, if not breakneck.  Read More »

The White House came under political fire earlier this month after it blocked a State Department intelligence expert from delivering written testimony on climate change. The expert’s findings were censored because they did not “jibe” with the President’s views. The administration’s rejection of climate science is nothing new, but criticism is mounting. In testimony before Congress this week, three former Republican administrators of EPA administrators blasted the President’s rejection of science. Read More »

Current talk of the Green New Deal or the GOP alternative Green Real Deal notwithstanding, the political contrast between the first Earth Day in 1970 and this year’s Earth Day is stark. While some still debate Nixon’s environmental record, there is no ambiguity in president Trump’s. He is sounding the retreat, not leading the charge. Read More »

In a new report, scientists warn of a precipitous drop in the world’s insect population. We need to pay close attention, as over time, this could be just as catastrophic to humans as it is to insects. Special attention must be paid to the principal drivers of this insect decline, because while climate change is adding to the problem, food production is a much larger contributor. Read More »