Smeal was joined at the briefing by Katy Vedlitz of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), Crystal Lander of the Center for Development and Population Activities, and PAI's own Craig Lasher, as well as Reps. Hilda Solis (D-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). Each speaker highlighted a different area that family planning funds help; taken all together, it was a striking picture of the callousness and disdain this administration feels towards women.

Craig Lasher, PAI's Senior Policy Analyst, was the most optimistic of the group. With last week's proposed increases to family planning funds in both the House and the Senate, Craig thinks we may have turned a corner. He spoke positively of the work done by USAID and UNFPA, though he pointed out that USAID funding is down 40 percent from its peak in 1995, and that the US has withheld UNFPA funding for the past seven years. All this good done despite being underfunded; I wonder what USAID and UNFPA could do if they had the millions that have been denied to them!

During her brief remarks, Crystal Lander focused on how broad a category "family planning" really is, and the nuances of the Global Gag Rule. She feels the current administration did not make reproductive health a priority, and so women have suffered. However, I would argue that family planning was a huge priority, just in a different direction. Lander herself pointed out that Bush's first action as President was to reinstate the Global Gag Rule, which quickly slashed funding to many international reproductive health organizations. Since then, the administration has kept rolling back access to family planning resources worldwide.

Katy Vedlitz of Planned Parenthood addressed domestic attacks on family planning, specifically women's access to affordable birth control. 2007 legislation eliminated the charitable discount pharmacists used to provide to colleges and universities, plus some 400 clinics across the country. As prices jumped from $5-10 per pack to $40-50, use of oral contraceptives decreased among students and low-income women. "Birth control is basic healthcare!" Vedlitz insisted, but frankly, she was preaching to the choir on that one. She was, after all, in a room full of young, mostly female, interns who had probably felt this price change keenly. Unfortunately, PPFA's campaign to restore affordable birth control may have to wait for a new administration to see real change. In fact, if the rumors that a Bush regulation would redefine "abortion" to include contraceptives are true, things are going to get worse before they get better.

Ellie Smeal was the last panelist to speak, and she took the most impassioned stance of all the speakers. She condemned the "unnecessary suffering" inflicted on women, and boiled the discussion down to the almighty dollar. In a privatized health care system, producers can earn huge profits on a product produced cheaply, like oral contraceptives. An overlarge population creates a surplus of laborers willing to work for lower wages, increasing the profits of manufacturers. Smeal accused the government of allowing supply and demand to trump the better interests of American women. Like any curious feminist, she asked why. Why do Republicans keep cutting family planning money? Why don't the Democrats restore those cuts? Why are women's lives less valuable than "a couple fighter planes" in an unpopular war?

This list of offenses feels overwhelming when taken in all at once. It felt even more pressing for me, as I've been reading Katha Pollitt's collection of columns, Virginity or Death! As the title suggests, many of these pieces discuss the war on women's reproductive rights. Katha? Ellie? I'm angry.

I've said a lot, and still managed not to explain why this matters to PAI. Watch "Abstaining From Reality" or "Access Denied" on PAI's YouTube channel. The films reveal the limitations of these misguided policies in Zambia, Uganda and Kenya, but we know that many other countries share the same problems. Current administration policies fail to meet the needs of millions of men and women around the world, and women suffer. Although PAI doesn't accept government funds, we do advocate for individual access to family planning methods and reproductive health. But if the organizations we work with are consistently underfunded, our mission is seriously compromised. It's time to make a difference.