Rep. Smith: New Women's Issues office part of Administration push for abortion

Washington D.C., Jun 12, 2009 / 16:24 pm

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill authorizing a new “Office for Global Women’s Issues” in the State Department. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) told CNA on Friday that he believes the new office is part of a behind-the-scenes Administration attempt to promote abortion worldwide.

Supporters claim that the Foreign Affairs Reauthorization Act (HR 2410) will promote women’s rights around the world.  But Rep. Chris Smith from New Jersey believes that the Bill is simply a veiled promotion of overseas abortions. 
“In the context of what the Obama administration has already done, I think it is pretty evident,” he told CNA.  “This is clearly part of an effort to integrate abortion into everything.”

Smith offered an amendment to HR 2410 that would have limited the new State Department office, authorizing it to help women in numerous ways but preventing it from promoting or providing abortions.  According to Smith, his amendment would have made the Bill in question “truly about human rights, not a stealthily masked push for abortion overseas.”

To objectors who claim that abortion is not the intent of the Bill, Smith responded, “I find that hard to believe with everything else this administration is doing.” The Obama Administration has been “working aggressively” to promote “worldwide abortions,” Rep. Smith charged.

“This is something that is already happening,” said Smith, who believes that his opponents’ suggestions that this Bill would not lead to more abortions is simply “a deceitful approach to confuse and mislead pro-lifers in Congress.”

As he defended his Amendment on the House floor this past Wednesday, Smith pointed to numerous examples of an Obama administration abortion push. 

A key example was President Obama’s reversal of the Mexico City policy, which had ensured that taxpayer money was not given to promote, lobby, or perform abortions overseas.  Within his first week in office, Obama lifted this ban, an act that Smith noted will allow pro-abortion organizations “to get hundreds of millions of dollars annually to push abortion around the world,” despite the fact that a recent poll shows that 65 percent of Americans opposed the policy’s reversal. 

Smith added that although a recent poll indicated that the majority of Americans consider themselves pro-life, Obama’s administration is overflowing with pro-abortion activists, including Wendy Sherman, the head of the U.S. Agency For International Development.  Every dollar of U.S. foreign aid goes through Sherman, the former director of EMILY's List, an organization that describes itself as dedicated to “building a progressive America by electing pro-choice Democratic women to office.”
  
Smith also spoke of the danger in a recent statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton redefining the term “reproductive health” to include abortion, explaining that this is simply another attempt to integrate abortion into the realm of general health care.

America’s efforts to promote worldwide abortion are not appreciated by their recipients, noted Smith.  “We are perceived by huge majorities of Africans and Latinos as cultural imperialists,” he said, observing that many of these countries have maintained strong family values and pro-life traditions until America starts to promote abortion.

“And then we try to integrate it with the aid we offer them, and link it with diplomacy,” he continued.  “They resent it bitterly.”

The great danger that accompanies the legalization of abortion, Smith said, is that once legal, the abortion marketers begin to sell abortion, using slogans and advertising techniques to promote it.  “They target women in vulnerable positions, who are more susceptible to deceit,” he explained.

Despite pro-life objections, the Bill passed the House, while Smith’s amendment was blocked by a vote of 17 for and 22 against.  Now, the Bill will continue to the Senate, where Smith expresses hope that it will be blocked. 

“There is no doubt in my mind,” he told CNA, “If this Bill is allowed to succeed, more babies and mothers will be hurt.”