NRL News
Page 18
April 2009
Volume 36
Issue 5

Clinton Admits “Reproductive Health” Means Abortion
By Dave Andrusko

“Now, I have to tell you that it was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision. ... I am really in awe of her. ... Yet we know that Margaret Sanger’s work here in the United States and certainly across our globe is not done.”

Pro-abortion Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, receiving Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award March 27

“As part of ‘Sanger’s work’ that remains undone, is the Obama Administration seeking to weaken or overturn pro-life laws and policies in African and Latin American countries either directly or through multilateral organizations including and especially the UN, African Union, or the OAS, or by way of funding NGOs like Planned Parenthood?

“And so we have total transparency, does the United States’ definition of the term 1) ‘reproductive health’ or 2) ‘reproductive services’ or 3) ‘reproductive rights’ include abortion?”

Pro-life Congressman Chris Smith, questioning Clinton at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing

It’s not often that pro-lifers get an opportunity to cut through the rhetorical legerdemain that pro-abortionists employ to hide their agenda and even more rare when they get an answer. But, thanks to House Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chair Chris Smith’s persistence, we got an answer to the question whether euphemisms (such as “reproductive health”) are code for abortion.

“We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health,” Clinton told Smith. “And reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal, and rare.”

Clinton’s reminder that “reproductive health” is code language for abortion on demand is particularly timely, as Administration officials and congressional Democratic leaders prepare to unveil sweeping “health care reform” legislation. As a candidate, Obama took the position that “reproductive health care is an essential service” and that it would be “at the heart of the [health care] plan that I propose.” (See “Obama and Democratic Leaders in Congress Hoping to Impose Sweeping Abortion Mandates in ‘Health Care Reform,’” April NRL News, page 1.)

Rep. Smith’s office issued a statement after the April 22 hearing. Here is an excerpt.

Smith said Clinton’s testimony today shows the Obama Administration is plotting to conduct a foreign policy that spreads abortion all over the world at U.S. taxpayers’ expense. “It is evident that Mrs. Clinton and President Obama want to force the tragedy of abortion upon women around the world especially and including in countries where democratically elected leaders want to continue to protect their unborn children,” Smith said.

“There are other ways in which both mother and baby are protected, cared for and helped—with food, nutrition, clean water and life-affirming healthcare,” he said. “Secretary Clinton’s inability to see this will mean more babies will die and more women will suffer the consequence of abortion as a result of U.S. foreign policy overseas.”

Also rare is the chance to hear public discussion about Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, in a way that tells the truth. Rep. Smith’s remarks immediately bring to mind Angela Franks’ brilliant book, Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy.

In her scholarly but readable book, Franks argues that Sanger did more than any other person to expand the reach of eugenics, an ideology that has done irreparable damage to countless women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and the poor. The book definitively demonstrates why Planned Parenthood is the enemy of women and children around the world. (You can read our review at http://www.nrlc.org/news/2005/NRL04/Sanger.html)

Please be sure to pass this Clinton admission along to friends, family, and colleagues. Although the number is diminishing, there are some who see themselves as pro-life who believe that the Obama Administration is reaching for “common ground” on abortion.

But as NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson has remarked, “The common ground Obama seeks for the pro-life movement is the burial ground.”