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Will Jenna Book Buck Dad on Women's Health?

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HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS? Jenna, women
Book-writing presidential daughter Jenna Bush would have you think she's filled with Bono-like compassion for the world's poor. But does she care enough to stand up to her dad?

Jenna's upcoming book, Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope, focuses on an orphaned teenage single mother with HIV, whom she encountered while working as a UNICEF intern in Central America. Bush tells USA Today the book will conclude with a "call to action," but is vague about what that might entail. (The book will be out this fall.)

Her father, of course, has taken plenty of action that affects women like Ana. Most notably, he reinstated the so-called Global Gag Rule, which bars family planning agencies overseas from receiving any aid from the U.S. government if they provide abortions, or even information about abortions. Critics say the rule has blocked such agencies from dispensing condoms that might otherwise prevent new HIV infections (like Ana's) and unplanned pregnancies (like Ana's).

Will Jenna's call to action include a plea to extend to adult women the same compassion some people seem to feel only for embryos? Hard to say: "Jenna is not doing any more interviews until publication," says a HarperCollins spokeswoman.

But those leading the effort to improve women's health in the Third World know what they'd like for her to say. "I certainly wish that she would call for an end to restrictive U.S. policies like the Global Gag Rule and abstinence-only HIV programs," says Barbara Crane, executive vice president of Ipas, an organization that works for women's reproductive rights. "These narrow-minded policies deny women access to information and services they need to protect themselves from HIV and unwanted pregnancies."

Ellen Marshall, a consultant to the International Women's Health Coalition, notes that the Bush Administration has also hurt women in the developing world by repeatedly freezing funding for the United Nations Population Fund, the world's largest family planning agency and a counterpart to UNICEF. "It's an easy political card for the administration to play to placate people who oppose contraception and family planning," says Marshall.

So would it be fair to say that Jenna would do well to direct her consciousness-raising efforts at her father? "Yes! That's a great place to start."

Photo: Getty Images

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