Let's Start the Week With Some Good News, Shall We?

Yes, please:

President-elect Barack Obama pledged to restore United States' international standing, including a promise to push for ratification of the long-ignored United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the women's equal rights treaty known as CEDAW, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Nov. 30.

Although 185 countries have ratified the 1979 treaty, the United States remains one of only eight that have not, alongside Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, Iran, Nauru, Palau and Tonga. The U.S. Senate must ratify the treaty and it could be difficult to persuade because the treaty says women should have access to "information, counseling and services in family planning," which anti-choice groups have interpreted as a guaranteed right to abortion.

Obama is also expected to eliminate the emphasis on abstinence--as opposed to safe-sex and prevention--in the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief. That has some religious conservatives worried that a core policy of President Bush's foreign aid agenda will be eliminated, the Christian News Service reported Dec. 2.

[Via Ann.]

This puts me in mind of a TNR piece forwarded to me recently by Matttbastard, in which A.J. Rossmiller notes:

In a major adjustment for the realms of foreign policy and national security, [Obama's] new approach will be led by women. … Of appointments already designated, the top posts in the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security, both cabinet-level positions, are Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano, respectively; our new ambassador to the United Nations will be Susan Rice; and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the number three position in the Department of Defense, is said to be reserved for Michele Flournoy. For perspective, in the 318 total years those positions have been occupied, women have held them for 16. Or to put it another way, if these women each serve for a single term, they will match the entire combined tenure of women in these positions in the history of the country.

Not to take anything away from President-Elect Obama, but I suspect that the women he has advising him (cough Clinton cough) have something to do with the push on CEDAW. (If you want to read some supercrazy, have fun Googling "Hillary Clinton Secretary of State CEDAW" and enjoy the MRA panic at the thought of her pushing for its ratification.)

Joe Biden is also a supporter of ratifying CEDAW.

Good stuff.