Dec 6, 2008 / 16:06 pm
President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Sen. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State has caused concern among pro-life leaders due to her past international advocacy for permissive abortion laws. Her appointment could foreshadow changes in U.S. policy at the U.N. concerning the rights of the unborn.
According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), Critics claim that Sen. Clinton, who was First Lady during her husband Bill Clinton’s presidency, had a major voice in the U.N. social policy of the Clinton administration. Her influence, encompassing several major U.N. conferences, included her participation at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
There, Sen. Clinton coined the phrase "women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights." The slogan became a rallying cry for a right to abortion.
Sen. Clinton’s work with former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, the Undersecretary for Global Affairs in the Clinton State Department, sought to broaden access to abortion.