Correction, please!(Brief Article)

Wronging Women

ITEM: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reported the Voice of America News for July 31st, "has approved an international treaty intended to promote equality for women around the world. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women would require member nations to reduce barriers to equality for women in employment, healthcare, marriage and other areas.

ITEM: "I am very pleased that the committee has approved this important treaty to protect the rights of women, commented Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on July 30th. "We should stop standing with countries which refuse to ratify this treaty, such as Sudan, Somalia, Iran and Syria and join the 170 nations who support it."

CORRECTION: Unratified in the U.S. since Jimmy Carter put his name to it in 1980, this United Nations treaty is a camouflaged call for women's "equality" that would in fact discriminate against women who don't fit the radical feminist mold. Senator Boxer argues that the U.S. should ratify this pact because otherwise we would be lumped with Sudan and Somalia. Apparently, she has yet to look at the list of human rights offenders that stand with CEDAW: Iraq, North Korea, Cuba--and Communist China, where women are forced to undergo abortions.

Indeed, abortion, prostitution, and even religious practices have already caught the attention of this UN entity. A CEDAW committee, for example, actually attacked Mother's Day in Belarus for contributing to stereotypes. CEDAW also boosted decriminalizing prostitution in China; pushed Ireland to legalize abortion while criticizing the church's role in public policy; urged Libya to "reinterpret the Koran"; and berated Slovenia because "less than 30 percent of children under three years of age ... were in formal day care."

Yet, the courage to oppose something dubbed "women's rights" is in short supply on Capitol Hill--especially when any White House misgivings have been so muted. Only a few months ago, the Bush administration was saying this UN convention was "generally desirable ...