There are more than 100 million women and girls alive today who are affected by FGM, the vast majority of them in Africa. Some also live in parts of the Middle East and Asia. With migration, affected women and girls now also live in the United States, Europe and, presumably, other parts of the world.

An unchallenged fixture of many news stories about population aging and decline in developed countries today is the idea that “replacement fertility”-the number of children women must have, on average, over their childbearing years to produce a stationary population-is 2.1 children. The extra tenth of a child is needed, the explanation often goes, to make up for the children who don't themselves survive to parenting age.

Women now account for half of the 33 million people living with HIV around the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the world's people living with HIV, women are even harder hit, making up 60 percent of those infected. Not only are women biologically more susceptible than men to HIV, many behavioral and social factors play into women's vulnerability.

Whatever one's view about population as an issue, few people fervently wish the world were home to a lot more human beings than it is. Some may wonder if another Mahatma Gandhi or an Albert Einstein or a Mother Theresa missed out on being born due to the declining global birthrates of the past few decades. But most know that such a question is fundamentally unanswerable and don't stay awake at night thinking about it.

The Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, was reinstated in 2001.It is a complicated policy for which explanations are rarely brief. Consequently, it is widely misunderstood and often over-interpreted. Anecdotal evidence from the field strongly suggests that the Global Gag Rule restrictions on U.S. family planning assistance are being mistakenly applied to other U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID) accounts,especially U.S. assistance for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.

On January 22, 2001 - his second day in office - President George W. Bush announced the reinstatement of the restrictions on overseas health care organizations in effect during the mid-1980s and early 1990s, commonly known as the "Mexico City Policy." The policy reversal has had serious ramifications for U.S. support for international family planning and reproductive health programs around the world.

In 2007, more than 6,800 people became infected with HIV every day, and new HIV infections outnumbered persons receiving treatment by nearly 3 to 1. Comprehensive HIV prevention-including both condoms and contraceptives-must become a top priority in the continued fight against HIV and AIDS. Because most HIV epidemics are fueled by sexual transmission of the virus, behavior change-including condom use-is critical to stemming the number of new infections.

The international community has repeatedly agreed to meet young people's developmental needs, including those relating to sexual and reproductive health. Yet young people often have little or no access to the information and services they need to make healthy, informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive lives.