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Washington, D.C. (April 2008) - Did you know that…
• On any given day more than twice as many people begin their lives (373,000) as end their lives (159,000)
• In ancient Greece, a herb used for birth control, called silphium, became so popular it was depicted on a coin-and subsequently was overharvested to extinction
• In 1873, the U.S. Congress made possession of contraception a crime
• Some medieval European prenuptial agreements stipulated that partners use withdrawal, oral contraception, pessaries, and the rhythm method to avoid pregnancies
In a first-of-its-kind book called More: Population, Nature and What Women Want, Robert Engelman spans centuries of women’s reproductive history and delves into deep-rooted questions of sexuality to ask the provocatively simple question, “What do women want?” The answer may be the key to saving the planet.
A former newspaper reporter, Engelman has traveled widely over the last 15 years, interviewing women about their contraception and family planning practices in countries around the world. He concludes that if women could determine for themselves whether and when to have children-without religious and social pressure or government control-the world would not be facing the kind of environmental problems it is today.
Over the past century the world’s human population quadrupled to 6.7 billion people and is on track to surpass 9 billion by 2045. Yet, most governments and many cultures continue to see family planning as taboo and grossly unequal access to it as acceptable. More explains not only how dangerous this is for women, their families and their communities, but how reproductive freedom for women is essential to solving climate change, stemming emerging diseases, calming civil conflict, and easing the traffic gridlock we face every day.
Critical both of policies that limit family size and those that limit access to family planning, Engelman argues that with knowledge and contraception, women will themselves regulate population in their families, and thus their communities and the world. Women don’t want more children but more for their children.
In More, Engelman explores:
• The risks women have taken to avoid unplanned pregnancies, from ingesting toxic herbs to watching their birth attendants burn as “witches”
• The many kinds of contraception that have been used through time-from crocodile dung, to okra pods to seaweed
• What is believed to be the oldest known account by a woman of her experience with sex and contraception (with a priest in the 14th century-the woman was later tried as a heretic)
• The high proportion of unintended pregnancies around the world
• The link between fertility rates and the availability of contraception and safe abortion
“With More, Engelman challenges environmentalists, development agencies, governments, and humanity itself to address population at its root,” says Charles S. Savitt, president and publisher of Island Press.
Engelman has put together a stunning look at the state of our world and a woman’s vital place in it. More explains how the decisions women make every day to have children or not matter to challenges from scarcity-driven conflict to climate change, and how they will shape the world all our children will inherit.
Robert Engelman is vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute. Formerly vice president for research at Population Action International and founding secretary of the Society of Environmental Journalists, he has served on the faculty of Yale University. His writing has appeared in Nature,The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Island Press was established in 1984 to stimulate, shape, and communicate the ideas that are essential for solving environmental problems. Publishing approximately 40 books and other information tools a year, we use a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed approach that brings practical solutions to complex challenges like climate change, the depletion of our oceans, sustainable energy and agriculture, and species extinction. A nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, Island Press publishes for scientists, policy makers, environmental practitioners, students, journalists, and the general public. Island Press - Solutions that inspire change.
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