Pro-Abortion Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Step Down

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 9, 2012   |   4:09PM   |   Washington, DC

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, an abortion advocate, will step down from her post days after President Barack Obama is inaugurated for a second term. Clinton is expected to seriously consider her own presidential bid in 2016.

The Weekly Standard has the details:

Hillary Clinton still intends to step down as secretary of state. That will take place likely “days” after President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in January.

“The Secretary has been honored to serve as President Obama’s Secretary of State, and has loved every minute of leading this Department and being part of the State family,” a Clintons spokesman says in an email. “But yes, you can confirm yet again that she’s been clear about her intention to leave after the first term.”

When asked for clarification on what date Clinton would step down, the spokesman, Philippe Reines, says, “She has said that she wants to ensure continuity, and realizes the confirmation of her successor might take a period of days beyond that.”

Reines, a long time Clinton loyalist, did not immediately respond to a question concerning what role he might play in (a possible) Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.

In her role as Secretary of State Clinton pressed for abortion on an international scale. As recently as June, she was upset the document the United Nations adopted at its Rio+20 conference last week did not promote abortion by inserting terms like “reproductive rights” into he language of the text.

A diverse group of countries rallied together with the Holy See to successfully remove any mention of reproductive rights or population control from the final outcome document produced during the last round of UN negotiations at the Rio +20 conference. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), along with Norway and Iceland, and Catholics for Choice and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, worked feverishly to take advantage of the Rio +20 conference on sustainable development in order to promote both an international right to abortion and population control.

However, nations like Nicaragua, Chile, Russia, Honduras, Syria, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Egypt all rejected the introductionof “reproductive rights” into the Rio +20 outcome document.

Responding to the resounding defeat, Clinton said she was disappointed, according to a CNS News report.

“While I am very pleased that this year’s outcome document endorses sexual and reproductive health and universal access to family planning, to reach our goals in sustainable development we also have to ensure women’s reproductive rights,” she said. “Women must be empowered to make decisions about whether and when to have children. And the United States will continue – the United States will continue to work to ensure that those rights are respected in international agreements.”

Last year, Clinton personally urged Obama to veto a State Department funding bill over cuts to groups that perform and promote abortions.

In 2010, she testified before a Congressional committee where two pro-life members of Congress presented her with a long lecture on abortion and how it hurts women.

Congressmen Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, and Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican, both addressed pro-life issues during the hearing.

Smith, who had frequently led the fight against abortion on an international scale, made his full remarks with Clinton sitting as the lone witness at the witness table.

“Secretary Clinton, the most persecuted and at risk minority in the world today are unborn children,” Smith said. “Pregnancy is not a disease. The child in the womb is neither a tumor nor a parasite to be destroyed.”

Smith said he is troubled by President Barack Obama’s decision to overturn the Mexico City Policy and open the door forcing taxpayers to fund abortions in other nations.

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“I am deeply concerned that with the elimination of the Mexico City Policy by executive order last year, NGO implementing partners may actively seek to integrate abortion with the many necessary and noble undertakings funded by the Global Health Initiative,” he said.

“I respectfully ask that the administration consider that for many of us, all abortion—legal or illegal—is violence against children and poses significant, often underappreciated risks to women and even to children later born to post-abortive women,” Smith added.