Obama Administration Raises Profile of Women’s Issues

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2009 - As the U.S. celebrates Women’s History month, the Obama administration has taken numerous positive steps that highlight what the White House calls “the elevated importance of women’s issues to this president and his entire administration.”

Over the last ten days, several key opinion and news stories have run. Below are links to a composite of coverage on how the Obama administration and Congress are raising the profile of women’s issues.

Today’s Washington Times features an op ed, "Economic Crisis' New Challenge," by Senator John Kerry that outlines how investing in girls can payoff immensely. He explains why, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he created a new subcommittee to focus on global women’s issues and concludes “It's time that we rethink our investment in the potential of more than half of the global population. We must look again at our international instruments and policy and strengthen the ability of women to make their own decisions and compete equally.”

The New York Times published an editorial, “Progress on Family Planning,” on March 13 that outlined the positive steps President Obama has undertaken to undo his predecessor’s actions, including signing a FY09 omnibus bill that provides a pill pricing provision designed to make affordable birth control available to millions of women across the U.S.; lifting the global gag rule imposed on international organizations that offered counseling about legal abortion or lobbied for rational abortion laws; and issuing a rule to rescind the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Federal Refusal Rule, which allows healthcare workers to deny abortion counseling or other family planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs. (Also read: ABC News and Reuters)

The Huffington Post featured a blog on March 11 by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid noting how President Obama signed into law the FY09 omnibus bill that includes $50 million in re-funding for UNFPA and signals an important “shift in U.S. policy to support reproductive health and women's rights worldwide.” The bill also includes a total of $545 million for bilateral and multilateral family planning and reproductive health programs worldwide, representing a 66 percent increase over the Bush administration’s request.

NPR reported on March 12 that President Obama created a White House Council on Women and Girls to coordinate Cabinet-level programs that affect women worldwide. It is expected to bring new visibility and coordinated action to many executive branch programs for women.

Agence France Presse reported March 6 that Melanne Verveer was nominated Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues in the State Department, an unprecedented move that reflects the elevated importance of international women’s issues to the President and his entire Administration.

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