“You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health and reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortions,” Clinton said Tuesday.
-- From "Hillary Clinton stirs the pot on Afghanistan, abortion and the Arctic" by Bruce Campion-Smith, Ottawa Bureau chief Toronto Star 3/30/10
[Secretary of State Clinton told] a Gatineau meeting of G8 foreign ministers that any initiative to improve maternal health – Ottawa’s signature global project this year – must include abortions, an option the Conservative government has tried to avoid.
It was just one more grenade in the lap of her shell-shocked Canadian hosts. In the eyes of some, the world’s most powerful diplomat turned in a sharp-elbowed performance during her two days in Canada.
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From "Hillary Clinton’s Comments on ‘Legal, Safe Abortion’ Stir Canadian Debate" by Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com International Editor 3/31/10
After a disclaimer that she would not speak for Canada, Clinton proceeded to lay out a position in opposition to that taken by conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government, linking maternal health promotion in poor countries to “access to legal, safe abortion.”
Earlier this year, Harper announced that Canada would place the promotion of maternal and child health in the developing world at the center of its leadership of the G8.
Harper’s announcement focused on needs such as clean water, inoculations, nutrition and the training of healthcare and maternity staff, but it quickly sparked a debate over whether the policy would, or should, include abortion and contraception.
The advocacy group Action Canada for Population and Development launched a campaign pressing for the G8 initiative to include “a commitment to sexual and reproductive health care and services and family planning.”
On March 16, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon declared that the maternal and child health initiative “does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to save lives.”
His comments set off a storm of controversy, and Harper two days later conceded that the policy would not exclude contraception. But he said his Conservative Party government did not wish to open a debate on abortion.
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