Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson writes that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's "search for a fight" about abortion in Canada's proposed maternal and child health initiative has put the U.S. at odds with conservative advocates. "Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, as host of June's [G8] meeting in Ontario, has been preparing [the] initiative to reduce maternal mortality in poor nations," Gerson writes. Harper's foreign affairs minister said this week that the initiative will not include abortion care but might include contraception, Gerson notes. During a meeting in Canada last month, Clinton said that "you cannot have maternal health without reproductive health," which "includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion."

Gerson writes, "Increased development assistance to improve global health has been one of the bipartisan achievements of the past decade," but the "political alliance on this issue has always been fragile." He argues that Clinton's comments "did damage beyond Canada" and that liberal advocates "need to understand ... how offensive many conservatives find the global health argument for abortion." He adds, "If the Obama administration and global health advocates place abortion rights at the center of their development agenda, they will not only solidify conservative opposition on child and maternal health but will also undermine Republican support for development spending as a whole."

At the same time, conservatives "need to show some flexibility to preserve the development coalition," Gerson continues. "Often, they interpret any mention of 'family planning' as a coded reference to abortion," he continues, adding that contraception "is an unavoidable part of public health" and that maternal health is "improved by the availability of voluntary contraception."

Gerson writes, "Though it has not pleased everyone, the recent consensus on development spending has been pro-life, or at least neutral on abortion, and pro-contraception," adding that this is the "position that Harper has taken and that Clinton has attacked." He concludes that "[c]hallenging either of these commitments may scratch an ideological itch, but it is likely to divide a movement, which could impose a cost on the poor and the sick that no one intends" (Gerson, Washington Post, 4/30).

Reprinted with kind permission from nationalpartnership. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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