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Women are the future. Always were and always will be. Michelle Goldberg has put out a new book, The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World about the global battle over reproductive rights, which pits feminists and family planning advocates against an international alliance of Christian, Mormon and Muslim religious fundamentalists.

To write it, she spent two years traveling the world, reporting on issues like population control, abortion, female circumcision, Asia's missing girls and Europe's birth dearth to show how the battle over women's bodies has been globalized.

As the book reveals, the conflict between self-determination and patriarchal tradition has crucial implications for the world we're all going to inherit. Empowering women is the key to addressing both overpopulation and rapid population decline, helping the third world climb out of poverty and retarding the spread of AIDS. Yet attempts to improve women's status elicit fierce opposition from conservatives who see women's submission as key to their own national or religious identity.