Pro-Life Leader on Intl Issues Condemns Obama’s Pro-Abortion Women’s Pick
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 12, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A pro-life leader who is intimately involved in abortion issues on a global scale is slamming President Barack Obama for picking another administration representative to promote abortion abroad. Obama recently announced the creation of a new foreign policy position to focus on women’s issues.
Melanne Verveer, an abortion advocate who served as chief of staff to former First Lady Hillary Clinton, will occupy the new post.
Her role as the new Obama ambassador to women abroad? Promote abortion and overturn pro-life laws in nations across the world.
That’s upsetting to Father Thomas Euteneuer, the president of Human Life International, who chastised the president for nominating Verveer to the new position of Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues.
"If working on ‘global women’s issues’ meant that the ambassador-at-large position would only be concerned with international sex trafficking, and with improving the lives, health and opportunities of women in developing countries, then she would find herself working in concert with [pro-life advocates]," he told LifeNews.com.
"We would support such a move. But since we know this administration’s radical anti-life priorities, we cannot afford to be so naïve as to think this is actually what the new ambassador will be doing," Euteneuer explained.
Euteneuer said Verveer will be promoting language on an international scale that can and will be used to promote an international right to abortion.
"This is yet another attempt to forward the ‘reproductive health’ agenda, which as we know by now is code for abortion," he said.
The HLI president continued: "So if an unborn child somehow evades the assaults of NGOs funded by Obama’s reversal of the Mexico City Policy, by his and Congress’ reinstated and increased funding for the UNFPA, and by the tens of millions of private funds for International Planned Parenthood Federation — the same child now faces a further threat, an ‘ambassador’ whose responsibility it is to see to it that she never sees the light of day."
"A real ambassador would report back to President Obama that women in developing countries do not want abortion," he said.
"She would report that these women actually love and want their children. She would remind the president of the ugly history of the United States’ meddling in the sovereign laws of other countries," said Fr. Euteneuer.
"But as is clear by now, this is not a real ambassadorial position. It is yet another redundancy in Obama’s program that is designed to eradicate future generations of the beautiful people in developing counties. ‘No child left behind’ seems to mean something else entirely to this president," he told LifeNews.com.
Verveer was nominated to the post based on her close ties to Clinton and her experience as co-founder of Vital Voices Global Leadership. She will hold the rank of Ambassador-at-Large.
Verveer founded Vital Voices with assistance from pro-abortion former UN ambassador Madeline Albright to reaffirm the population and development goals of the United Nations conference in Beijing in 1995.
In 2005, while marking the ten year anniversary of Beijing, then-Senator Clinton applauded the role of Verveer’s group and talked about the kind of measures needed to advance the interests of women. Clinton placed advancing abortion in third-world nations at the top of the list.
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