The Bush administration hates women. It showcases a few key--and extreme right-wing--women to throw off a largely ignorant American public. Gale Norton, Condoleezza Rice, Ann Veneman and Karen Hughes serve a double purpose: They make Bush look "pro-woman" and they help to advance the extreme right-wing agenda of the administration.

Bush's very first act of office, on the day he stepped into the White House, was to stop funding of any programs overseas that pay for abortions and abortion counseling. This means that the countless women who are raped in societies where rape is acceptable are now forced to give birth. The hundreds of girls who are victims of incest are also forced to give birth. There is no counseling for women and girls who have already had abortions.

Even more tragic, Bush's move also means that thousands and thousands of girls and women can no longer receive birth control information or information on how to prevent the spread of STDs.

At least 200,000 (some studies estimate as high as 400,000) women a year commit suicide because of botched or self-inflicted abortions.

This is Bush's version of returning morality to the White House.

But there's more. At the 2002 U.N. Special Session on Children, six countries voted to restrict giving information on STDs to adolescents: Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and the United States. The U.S. "delegates" (Bush has replaced all of our public health experts with Christian Right lunatics) also objected to providing post-trauma services to child victims of war on the grounds that the girls who were raped might be offered abortions.

Hold on...there's more, in case you've forgotten. At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the U.S. tried to destroy the inclusion of genital mutilation of girls, forced child marriages, and "honor" killings of girls and women as human rights violations.

From removing dozens of women's issues articles from government websites, to lying about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing STDs and AIDS, to bullying the FDA into ignoring their own scientists and rejecting over-the-counter emergency contraception, to nominating federal judge candidates with solid anti-woman records--this administration has shown full contempt for women and women's rights.

Granted, neither major political party has much interest in women's rights, despite giving all kinds of lip service to feminism. The ERA has never been revived, wage and salary discrimination continues at an alarming level, crimes against women are increasing, and the popular culture demeans women and girls just as it did before the Second Wave of the women's movement came about.

But the vicious misogyny of the Bush administration is spectacular.