NEWS
By KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE | February 26, 1997
WASHINGTON -- Ending the first abortion-related skirmish of the 105th Congress, the Senate approved President Clinton's request yesterday for early release of $385 million in international family-planning funds.The 53-46 Senate vote clears the measure for Clinton's signature."This is a victory for women, children and families all over the world," said the White House press secretary, Mike McCurry.The money had been in limbo because anti-abortion lawmakers were concerned that the United States was supporting population-control groups that promoted abortion overseas.
NEWS
By Tom Teepen | July 16, 1999
THOUGHT much about the abortion issue lately? Probably not. And that's the idea.An eerie quiet has come over many of the usually clamorous sources of abortion opposition. From Christian Coalition guru Pat Robertson to hyper-right commentators like Cal Thomas to the pack of Republican presidential runners wheezing ever farther behind Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the issue is being downplayed. If they are asked, then, yes, they are still for criminalizing abortion once again, but the old fire has been banked, or seems to have been.
NEWS
By Jonathan Weisman and Karen Hosler | November 16, 1999
WASHINGTON -- White House and congressional negotiators agreed yesterday to legislative language that could restrict abortion advocacy by overseas family planning organizations, in exchange for nearly $1 billion in back dues for the United Nations.The agreement came as the negotiators scrambled to tie up the remaining loose ends on a budget deal they hope Congress can approve this week.One last-minute addition was a $500 million disaster relief package for victims of Hurricane Floyd.Several major items remained in dispute last night, however, most notably a $6.5 billion gap in revenue.
NEWS
By Ellen Goodman | November 16, 1999
NEW YORK -- When Agnes Nixon, doyenne of the American soap opera, was once asked to share the recipe of her sudsy success, she offered up three ingredients: make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait.It's not clear if Agnes had any purpose for "All My Children" beyond selling detergent. But somewhere along the way, it became clear that if soaps could sell soap, they could sell social change.Enter a young Ms. Greenleaf onto the Chinese television screen. On a rainy fall morning, I am sitting beside Chen Sheng Li of the State Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China, watching a dramatic -- oh well, melodramatic episode of "Ordinary People."
NEWS
By Megan Kennedy | February 21, 1999
After giving birth, a 19-year-old Baltimore resident headed to Planned Parenthood and got her first injection of the contraceptive Depo-Provera. One year later, she "likes Depo because I don't have time to remember to take the pill."This young mother is one of the many teens who are finding Depo-Provera a more convenient, more reliable method of birth control. In fact, family planning counselors say the reason teen pregnancy rates have dropped in both Baltimore and the nation is due, in part, to Depo-Provera.
NEWS
April 9, 1998
Dr. Andrew T. Wiley, a former surgeon and family planning specialist with federal and state agencies, died of a heart attack Saturday at his Columbia home. He was 74.For 20 years until he retired in 1991, Dr. Wiley was a family planning specialist with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Maryland Maternal Health and Family Planning Office. Earlier, he served with the Peace Corps from 1968 to 1970 in Tonga.After he retired, he was a volunteer public policy adviser at the Population Institute in Washington.
NEWS
By Sara Engram | March 15, 1998
A FEW YEARS ago, a coalition of family planning organizations in New York state received a telephone call from a perplexed 19-year-old woman. The outpatient center where she had been receiving contraceptive injections had just turned her away, informing her that after a merger they no longer offered the service.The young woman, already a mother, explained that she was trying to finish school and that another pregnancy could prevent her from reaching that goal. But the clinic gave her no referrals.
NEWS
October 22, 1997
Katherine Oettinger,94, an expert on raising retarded children and a member of four presidential administrations, died Oct. 3 in Carmel, Calif.President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed her as chief of the Children's Bureau in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1957.When the bureau was abolished in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson named her deputy assistant secretary for family planning and population.She retired from the government in 1970, when the Nixon administration abolished the post, and traveled the world as a population control and family planning expert.
NEWS
May 20, 1997
ALTHOUGH THE $2.25 million grant from a charity controlled by Microsoft Corp.founder Bill Gates isn't the largest gift to Johns Hopkins' School of Hygiene and Public Health from a private source, the contribution is significant: It will support public health initiatives that have made Hopkins revered in corners of the world where people have never heard of Baltimore.The Gates gift, spread over five years, will fund a Family Planning Leadership Education Institute to help health care leaders in developing countries design, administer and evaluate their own family planning efforts.
NEWS
March 1, 1997
THANKS to a 53-46 vote in the U.S. Senate, foreign aid funds for family planning programs will not be subjected to a punitive and administratively wasteful delay, as last year. That is good news for families around the world that depend on these programs for contraceptives and reproductive health care.U.S. law has long prohibited the use of aid funds for abortions, and abortion is illegal in most countries that receive family planning aid. That hasn't stopped abortion opponents from opposing programs that help families space their children far enough apart to give infants a better chance of survival and mothers a better chance of preserving their health.