The United Nations will soon hold meetings and conferences to establish international standards on HIV/AIDS, family planning and human rights—and social progressives are urging President Barack Obama to influence a departure from the former administration’s conservative values, reports The Washington Post.

According to the article, various advocacy groups have been pressing the new administration to end the U.S. government’s promotion of abstinence-only sex education and faith-based groups’ block on funding for abortions in developing countries. “If we want to have an impact on the AIDS epidemic, we cannot allow moral ideological considerations to trump scientific evidence and human rights,” says Joseph Amon, an epidemiologist who heads the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.

By March, Congress plans to present Obama with a bill to restore tens of millions of dollars for family-planning programs to the U.N. Population Fund for the first time in seven years.