Feminists of a certain political stripe are accusing the Bush administration of "flip-flopping on its commitment to women."

"In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, 14 leaders from women's health, human rights and development organizations questioned the U.S. commitment to halving world poverty by 2015," asserts a Sept. 13 press release from the International Conference on Population and Development. "With less than 24 hours until the start of the World Summit at the United Nations, the U.S. refuses to endorse policies that would significantly advance poverty goals by advancing women's rights."

Wow. We knew the Bush administration was made up of people with bad comb-overs who wear white socks with black loafers. But have they really just come out against allowing women in other countries to vote, to work as doctors or architects, or to attend school, drive cars, or appear in public with their wrists or ankles bared?

Um ... no.

What's going on here is that these activists believe the cure for poverty overseas is for well-meaning Americans and Europeans to go into Third World countries and reduce their birth rates.

Birth control pills? Feminists warn tyrannical Third World husbands may throw them away. Condoms? The news release specifically ridicules an "ideological-based position that focuses on abstinence, being faithful and use of condoms for 'high-risk' groups."

What that leaves is U.S. taxpayer financing for abortions and human sterilization overseas.

The group Concerned Women for America has made a detailed study of such related U.N. initiatives as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), finding that "CEDAW undermines the traditional family structure in the United States and other nations that respect the family. The preamble states, 'A change in the traditional role of men as well as the role of women in society and in the family is needed to achieve full equality between men and women.' "

Regarding children, CEDAW assumes that government, not parents, knows best. The Committee derided Slovenia because only 30 percent of children younger than 3 were in day care centers. The remaining 70 percent, the committee claimed, would miss out on education and social opportunities offered in state-run day care institutions. Its review of Germany urged "the Government to improve the availability of care places for school-age children to facilitate women's re-entry into the labor market."

Gender re-education? "Comparable worth" wage laws? What do you think?

What CWA analysts Laurel MacLeod and Catherine Hurlburt found was that when such U.N. documents use the euphemism "family planning, they really mean access to abortion services."

"That construction is consistent with feminist thought, which views pregnancy as the only major difference between men and women," Ms. MacLeod and Ms. Hurlburt report. "In the feminist view, pregnancy hampers women and lessens their ability to compete equally with men, so abortion must be available to all women as an equality measure."

Do those now challenging the administration's position on these far-out U.N. mandates have the right to take such a position? Of course they do.

The question is, why not admit there's a debate about whether the American feminist vision of the 1970s -- the presumption that traditional families, children, marriage and motherhood form the chains that hold women in bondage -- is "best" for women all around the world, and argue their case in a forthright manner, instead of implying Condoleezza Rice favors wife-beating and illiteracy?