Web Letters: Listen to the Women

UN Summit Must Address Population Issues

By Barbara Crossette

September 14, 2008

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  • Barbara Crossette aptly notes that "UN member nations have a poor record on keeping promises to women." Investments in family planning and sexual and reproductive health services are a powerful catalyst for breaking cycles of poverty. Yet, while some "rich-world feminists" are still focused on the dangers of coercion from population programs, most have correctly identified the detrimental threat to women's rights posed by the lack of access to contraceptives. I agree that the decrease in funding for family planning has had a devastating impact on women's lives around the world and on our ability to make headway in reaching the Millennium Development Goals. However, advocating for access to family planning and reproductive health services is very much a key component of the feminist agenda.

    Carmen Barroso

    New York, NY

    09/22/2008 @ 3:18pm


  • There is an ongoing effort to achieve equal representative rights for women at the national and international levels of government, in a form of democratically induced and controlled world federation. Such a political entity would simply state that upon election victory, one man and one woman would occupy what is now one seat in any national or international world federal legislature.

    Carl Joudrie

    Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

    09/16/2008 @ 6:53pm


  • Unfortunately, the rights of women will depend, in much of the Islamic world, on how well we do in Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps in Pakistan.

    John D. Froelich

    Upper Darby, PA

    09/16/2008 @ 01:16am


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