Hillary Clinton Swears In Melanne Verveer to Lead Obama’s Intl Abortion Agenda

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 15, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Hillary Clinton Swears In Melanne Verveer to Lead Obama’s Intl Abortion Agenda

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 15
, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — In a late Friday ceremony, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swore in the new head of the Office of Women’s Issues who will promote President Barack Obama’s international abortion agenda. Melanne Verveer becomes a new ambassador whose mission is to promote abortion as part of a focus on women.

"Who better to fulfill the position, a new position, of Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues than, the one and only, Melanne Verveer," Clinton said.

Verveer apparently has significant sway as Clinton said "Melanne has been, like all the rest of you, telling me what to do for years."

Clinton said Verveer would "be the vital voice to make sure that the concerns of women and girls remain central to the American foreign policy agenda."

However, that is an agenda that Clinton admitted in a Congressional hearing includes promoting abortion.

In a hearing with Foreign Affairs Committee members on April 22, she admitted, “We are now an administration that will protect the rights of women, including their rights to reproductive health care,” and that “reproductive health includes access to abortion.”

She told members of the panel, “you are entitled to advocate . . . anywhere in the world, and so are we.”

Verveer is an abortion advocate who served as chief of staff to Clinton when she was the First Lady and who is the co-founder of Vital Voices Global Leadership. She will hold the rank of Ambassador-at-Large.

Verveer founded the Vital Voices group 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.

Marie Smith, the director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues, told LifeNews.com in March that Obama’s creation of this post and appointment of Verveer to it will advance abortion on a global scale.

Combined with his decision to overturn the Mexico City Policy, she said the announcement "adds to the evidence that both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are pursuing a global abortion agenda" that "makes no attempt at common ground."

That agenda, Smith explains, will include lobbying other nations to overturn their historical pro-life laws that are based in their cultural and religious beliefs.

"The change to pro-life laws and policies that Hillary Clinton and Vital Voices pursue will now be promoted by a US ambassador," Smith added. "This is blatant disregard for sovereign laws and policies of nations who respect the inherent worth and dignity of life and who treat the unborn child as a valued member of the family."

Smith said Obama’s decision will promote abortion at a time when women need real help and assistance ranging from economic support to better health care and education.

"It is tragic that the United States will pursue a path of imposing an extremist view of abortion that 60% of the world’s countries reject, while at the same time, women globally are in need of life-affirming measures to improve their and their families’ lives," Smith said.

House Democrats prevented the chamber from voting on an amendment to make sure Verveer can’t use the new office to promote abortion.

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