The Feminist Majority Foundation, along with nine other women’s rights and health organizations has called for the withdrawal of President Bush’s nomination of Ellen Sauerbrey to be Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Sauerbrey is currently the US Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women and has no experience handling refugee and crisis situations.
Sauerbrey opposed the Convention on the Right of the Child and the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. She has repeatedly asserted that “reproductive health services” is “code” for abortion, and headed the Bush administration’s effort to undermine the Beijing Platform for Action, an agreement between 189 countries to safeguard women’s rights.
A former member of the Maryland House of Delegates, Sauerbrey was asked to head Bush’s 2000 campaign effort in Maryland and was then appointed by him to the UN Commission on Human Rights and her present position, reports the Los Angeles Times. Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, states, “Whether we’re talking about her complete lack of experience in the areas of refugees and migration or her continued refusal to advance the reproductive rights of women, it is clear that Ellen Sauerbrey is unqualified to serve as Assistant Secretary.”
