Reproductive rights "key" to Obama foreign policy

The new U.S. ambassador for global women's issues, Melanne Verveer, pledged the Obama administration's "deep commitment" to a UN blueprint aimed at slowing the world's population explosion and empowering women. At the heart of the action plan adopted at a UN population conference in Cairo 15 years ago is a demand for women's equality through education, economic development, access to modern birth control and the right to choose if and when to become pregnant. [Editor: As we know, it also demands the right to end a pregnancy.] Hillary Clinton, now secretary of state, told a conference of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in Houston last month "that reproductive rights and the umbrella issue of women's rights and empowerment is going to be a key to the foreign policy of this administration." Kansas City Star