The Context: An Overview of U.S. Foreign Policy Under the Bush Administration
Since January 2001, the Bush administration has pursued a number of policies that threaten the health and rights of women and girls worldwide. Backed by a Republican-controlled Congress, the Administration is eroding global sexual and reproductive health and rights in four ways: by limiting or withdrawing funding from effective programs; by creating new sources of funding or channeling existing funds through organizations and programs that promote its political and moral agenda, regardless of their scientific legitimacy or public health credentials; by censoring information, advocacy, and research on comprehensive health strategies; and by trying to renege on previous international agreements involving sexual and reproductive health and rights. more>>

In this Section>>

Putting Politics Before Public Health: The Global Gag Rule
IWHC's analysis of the Global Gag Rule, a U.S. policy that denies family planning funds to any foreign nongovernmental organization that speaks in any way about abortion—even if abortion is legal in their countries. more>>

Denying Health Services to the World's Most Vulnerable Women: The Defunding of UNFPA
IWHC's analysis of the Bush administration's decision—for four years running—to cut off funding for UNFPA, the largest international provider of family planning and reproductive health services in the developing world. more>>

Global HIV/AIDS
IWHC's analysis of President Bush's five-year, $15-billion Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which commits unprecedented U.S. funding to addressing global HIV/AIDS, but fails to address the gender inequalities fueling the epidemic's spread. more>>

Adolescents
IWHC's analysis of Bush administration policies that undermine adolescents' access to full and accurate information about sexuality and reproduction both within the United States and in the developing world, where young people are disproportionately vulnerable to HIV infection and unwanted pregnancy.  more>>