the  Administration’s domestic track record. The   Bush   administration   has   been   actively engaged in leaving its stamp on international repro- ductive  health.  Although  multiple  campaigns  for women’s health have made great strides around the world, under Bush, U.S. intervention has worsened global women’s health disparities. In 2001, he rein- stated the “global gag rule” that had reigned during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, which requires any organization apply- ing for U.S. funds to agree neither to counsel about nor  provide  women  with  abortions  (see  box  this page).²⁹   But   that   was   only   the   starting   point. Showing  the  same  disdain  for  collaboration  with other countries that informs his foreign policy as a whole,   Bush   enlisted   the   help   of   evangelical Protestant and conservative Roman Catholic organ- izations  to  disrupt  the  diplomacy  needed  to  craft solutions   to   international   crises   in   population growth,  AIDS/HIV,  and  the  needless  deaths  and debility   resulting   from   inadequate   reproductive health care. If  reinstating  the  global  gag  rule  was  Bush’s early offering to the anti-choice cause on the inter- national level, refusing to ratify the United Nations Convention  on  the  Elimination  of  All  Forms  of Discrimination  Against  Women  (CEDAW)  was  a major  gift.  Because  this  international  convention opposing  discrimination  against  women  includes human rights language like “access to health care services,  including  those  related  to  family  plan- ning,” U.S. anti-choice groups used the opportuni- ty to claim it would lead to the right to an abor- tion.³⁰ Their success in preventing the United States from signing on to CEDAW— created by the UN in 1979—reflects the ability of these groups to main- tain   a   long-term   focus   on   curtailing   women’s rights.  The  treaty,  “is  like  the  Equal  Rights Amendment on steroids,” quipped Wendy Wright of   Concerned   Women   for   America   in   2002, describing   her   opposition.³¹  CEDAW   remains unratified by the United States. While its primary focus has been on restricting abortion, the religious Right has broadened its inter- national reach to include not only moral attacks on contraception, sexuality education, and homosexu- ality but has also joined with some feminist groups to battle sex trafficking.³² Like  conservative  NGOs,  challenging  language that in any way is suggestive of reproductive health or choice has become a major preoccupation of the Bush  Administration  at  the  United  Nations.  Bush representatives repeatedly tried to weaken a unani- mous resolution on the fundamental right to health by pressuring for the word “services” to be deleted from the phrase “health care services,” claiming that it was a code word for abortion.³³ In promoting sexual abstinence for adolescents, the Bush administration and its allies attack conven- tional language referring to reproductive health care. They  fought  one  such  battle  at  the  UN  Special Session on Children in 2002 and succeeded in remov- ing a description of comprehensive sexuality educa- tion.  The  phrase  “comprehensive  sexuality  educa- tion” is a lightning rod for the Christian Right in the United  States.  To  them  the  phrase  signals  morally abhorrent alternatives to abstinence-only sex educa- tion. In their eyes comprehensive sexuality education can  only  lead  to  many  social  problems,  including increased sexual activity among adolescents and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. At the UN high level meeting on HIV/AIDS in June  2006  in  New  York  City,  George  W.  Bush packed the U.S. delegation headed by his wife with senior  advisors  from  the  Christian  Right.³⁴  Bush’s delegation succeeded in weakening UN support for UNd o i n g   R e p r o d u c t i v e   Fr e e d o m  ^•Christian Right NGOs Target the United Nations POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES   2006 9 ²⁹Memorandum from the White House, United States Agency for International Development, http://www.usaid.gov/whmemo.html. ³⁰United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, “CEDAW,” http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm#arti- cle12. ³¹http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54524,00.html. ³²See Jennifer Block, “Sex Trafficking: Why the Faith Trade is Interested in the Sex Trade,” Conscience, Spring 2004, http://www.catholicsfor- choice.org/conscience/archives/c2004sum_sextrafficking.asp. ³³“Bush’s Other War: The Assault on Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights,” International Women’s Health Coalition. www.iwhc.org. ³⁴Esther Kaplan, “A Disaster for Abstinence Ideology.” http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/5/25/101656/916.Also see “U.S. Blocking Deal on Fighting AIDS,” Mail and Guardian, a Southern African newspaper, June 2, 2006, http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=273524&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/.