BUSH ADMINISTRATION�S WEEK IN REVIEW
Karen Hughes� Remarks on March for Women�s Lives
Wolf Blitzer of CNN�s Late Edition asked Bush aide Karen Hughes on April 25, �How big of an issue will this abortion rights issue be in this campaign?� Hughes responded:

�It's always an issue. And I frankly think it's changing somewhat. I think after September 11th the American people are valuing life more and realizing that we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life. And President Bush has worked to say, let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's try to reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions. And I think those are the kind of policies that the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy, and really the fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life. It's the founding conviction of our country, that we're endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately our enemies in the terror network, as we're seeing repeatedly in the headlines these days, don't value any life, not even the innocent and not even their own.�

Reuters reported April 27 that in separate letters to Hughes, march co-sponsors Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, demanded an apology. �This kind of cynical, ugly and mean-spirited partisan rhetoric not only demeans those who attended the march, but also the vast majority of Americans who support reproductive health and abortion rights,� said Smeal. Hughes was quoted in an April 28 story by The Washington Post as saying the criticisms were "a gross distortion� of her remarks. At an April 29 press conference, CNN.com reported, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) said that "by implying that pro-choice Americans have the same values as terrorists, Hughes insulted millions of American men and women, who believe women should make their own choices about their reproductive health. We are here to call upon Ms. Hughes to apologize. And we hope that President Bush will disassociate himself from these unfortunate remarks." Read: CNN � Late Edition, CNN.com, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, CNN � Inside Politics, Hartford Courant, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Bush Administration Graded Poorly on Performance on Women�s Issues
Inter Press Service reported April 20 on the fourth release of the Women�s Global Scorecard by Feminist Majority, Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and the Centre for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE). They graded Bush's performance on his emergency plan for HIV/AIDS, global women's rights, international family planning and support for the United Nations Population Fund. The organizations argued that the president sometimes makes all the right noises but rarely follows up by taking the correct steps. Smeal of the Feminist Majority said �U.S. policies are now not only adversely affecting women domestically, but they're probably having their greatest negative impact worldwide. We used to say, 'If we lose [abortion rights] women will die.' You will not hear that at this march. You will hear, 'Women are dying, are being injured, because it is now driven home how devastating these policies are.'� Read: Inter Press Service, Pioneer Press, Kansas City Star, listen to coverage by C-SPAN, �Discussion on Global Women's Issues & the Bush Administration.� For more information, go to: www.Wglobalscorecard.org

USAID Withdraws Support for Global Health Conference
The Hill first reported April 22 on conservatives� anger that the Department of Health and Human Services had teamed with critics of the Bush administration to hold a conference, sponsored by the Global Health Council, that would likely promote policies contrary to the president's. On April 26, The Washington Times reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had withdrawn its support for the conference. An unnamed aide of a House conservative who works with socially conservative groups said, �The two that we would be particularly concerned about are the International Planned Parenthood Federation and UNFPA, both of which have been denied U.S. assistance for family-planning funds.� In the April 27 story by The Washington Post, James Sherry of the Global Health Council said the council had been told "to expect a letter" forthwith rescinding $150,000 in HHS funds for the gathering.

In response to The Washington Times� April 23 editorial calling the Global Health event a �pro-abortion population-control conference,� the Times ran a letter from Nils Daulaire, GHC president and CEO, on April 28: �The Global Health Council is a strictly non-partisan organization representing practitioners on the front lines of global health. We have worked closely and collaboratively with the Bush administration and with all past administrations during our 31-year history.� He said: �Improved health for 1 billion young people around the world is too important to turn into a political kickball.� Read: The Hill, Washington Times: April 23 editorial, April 26 article, April 28 letter, Washington Post

Bush Administration Removed 25 Reports from Women's Bureau Web Site Reuters reported April 28 that the Bush administration has stripped information on a range of women's issues from government Web sites, researchers from National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) reported. �Vital information is being deleted, buried, distorted and has otherwise gone missing from government Web sites and publications,� said Linda Basch, president of NCRW. A council report said the missing information involved women's health; their economic status; objective scientific data; and information aimed at protecting women and girls and helping them advance. The deletions and alterations appear to hew to a political agenda, rather than providing nonpartisan, unbiased data in the tradition of U.S. government reports, the council said. In an e-mailed statement to Salon that ran in an April 28 story, New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney said, "I'm grateful to the National Council for Research on Women for confirming what many of us in Congress have insisted for years�we can't continue to advance as women if the cold, hard facts of our status are unknown. We've seen a disturbing trend toward hiding the information that helps us improve women's lives. I hope that this is the beginning of a successful effort to uncover the missing data." Read: Reuters, Salon.com

SAVING WOMEN�S LIVES
Study Finds Most Women of Childbearing Age Use Contraceptives
Voice of America reported April 22 that a study by the U.N. Department of Economics and Social Affairs found 61 percent of all women between 15 and 49 use contraceptives. According to the study, the practice is most prevalent in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 71 percent of the region�s 82 million women are said to use contraceptives. Africa has the lowest percentage: only 27 percent of the 117 million women there use some form of family planning. Read: Voice of America

Few Pregnant Women Have Access Medical Services
IRIN reported April 21 that although Angola has among the world's highest infant and maternal mortality rates, few pregnant women use available medical services. A team of officials from the ministry of health, a group of young activists called Gira Jovem and Management Sciences for Health are trying to convince pregnant women to go for pre-natal consultations at the health center in Cacuaco, a 15-minute drive away. It gives health guidance and makes sure they take vitamins and anti-malaria medication. Complicated pregnancies are referred to larger hospitals in Luanda, but transporting patients is sometimes difficult. �We have an ambulance, but it is quite old,� Margarida Cambinda, head public health at the center, explained. �It is not very reliable�one week it works, the other it doesn't.� Read: IRIN

Pregnant Adolescents Return to School in Zambia
IRIN reported April 22 that 30 pregnant teenage girls in a Zambian refugee camp were given an opportunity to go back to school last July in a pilot project of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). The initiative, likely to be extended for a second year, is being implemented by the Young Men's Christian Association as part of a UNFPA program to address the reproductive health of adolescent refugees. It was launched in Meheba in northwest Zambia, one of the oldest refugee camps in the country, �because it had a very high incidence of teenage pregnancies�the highest among all the refugee camps in Zambia,� said UNHCR's community services assistant in Zambia, Maureen Mushinge. Read: IRIN

Midwives Trained to Improve Child and Mother Health Care
Pakistan Press International reported April 19 that at an Islamabad regional workshop on skilled birth attendants (SBAs), Federal Health Minister Nasir Khan said the government has launched projects in 20 districts to train midwives for improved child and maternal health care. Another project will seek to improve reproductive health services in 34 more districts, he said. An April 19 story by IRIN quoted UNFPA reproductive health advisor Mubasher Malik as saying, "We are advocating SBAs because an SBA is very well trained to handle life-threatening situations and to provide first aid then and there immediately, because in a short span of time, a small amount of first aid can do a lot." Read: IRIN, Pak Tribune

In South Africa, Male Violence towards Women Boosts HIV Risk
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported April 30 on a research finding in the May 1 issue of the British medical weekly The Lancet that women who are beaten or dominated by their partners are much more likely to become infected with HIV than women in non-violent households. "Women with violent or controlling male partners are at increased risk of infection," said the authors, led by Kristin Dunkle, a University of Michigan epidemiologist. "We postulate that abusive men are more likely to have HIV and impose risky sexual practices on partners." AFP noted that feminists have long warned that gender violence and inequality are major but tragically unpublicized factors in spreading the AIDS pandemic. Read: Agence France-Presse, The Lancet, and an April 26 op ed, �A Comprehensive Strategy to Protect Women,� in The International Herald Tribune

EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS
A Sheboygan Press (USA) editorial April 23 noted: �America's �war on AIDS� is going as badly as its war in Iraq.� President Bush�s $15 billion AIDS relief proposal �didn't make up for his 2002 decision to withdraw $34 million for the United Nations Population Fund. That fund is the world's primary multilateral provider of voluntary family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention.� The editorial concluded: �It's time for America to work with the international community to carry out the most cost-effective treatment for those who have contracted HIV/AIDS and to restore the U.S. share of the funding to the U.N. Population Fund, the primary agency working to keep Africans and others from contracting the disease in the first place.� Read: Sheboygan Press

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The above summary was written by Elena Cabatu and Kathy Bonk at the Communications Consortium Media Center, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, 202/326-8700. Redistributi