President Bush Appoints New Pro-Life Ambassador to the United Nations
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 5, 2004
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — On Friday, President Bush appointed a new ambassador to the United Nations, former Missouri senator John Danforth.
Danforth accumulated a strong pro-life voting record during his tenure in Congress, receiving high marks from the National Right to Life Committee and obtaining a 100% pro-life voting record during several years.
The nomination should help pro-life groups, who have been waging a fight, along with the Bush administration, to stop expansion of abortion worldwide, to lobby the U.N. to approve a ban on all forms of human cloning, and to stop the UNFPA from supporting China’s coercive one-child policy.
The UNFPA, a family planning agency at the U.N., denies any involvement in China’s population control program, which includes forced abortions and sterilizations. But testimonies from hundreds of victims and firsthand research from numerous organizations shoot down the agency’s claims.
Danforth voted consistently against taxpayer funding of abortions — including sending taxpayer money to groups that perform abortions in other countries or lobby other nations and the United Nations to make abortion legal worldwide.
He also co-sponsored a human life amendment to the constitution to guarantee legal protection to unborn children and overturn the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
However, at the end of Danforth’s career, he did upset NRLC and the pro-life community by voting for a bill limiting protests outside abortion facilities and supporting the use of fetal tissue from abortions in research.
While in the Senate, Danforth also led the confirmation battle to confirm pro-life Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He voted for failed pro-life Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork as well.
He is a licensed Episcopal priest, former Missouri Attorney General, and currently in private practice. Danforth is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale University’s law school.
Danforth would replace John Negroponte, who will become U.S. ambassador to Iraq, in an effort to work with leader to turn the Middle Eastern country into a democracy following the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime of genocide and torture.
Negroponte had earned praise from the pro-life community for his strong lobbying efforts, along with Latin American, African and Catholic countries, in favor of a complete human cloning ban.
The U.N. is expected to vote on the ban, co-sponsored by Costa Rica and the United States, when it reconvenes in September.
Danforth’s nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, but a vote to approve him is considered likely.
