The State Department is sponsoring a Global Health Initiative (GHI) that is designed to promote disease prevention programs, better world nutrition, and improve pre and post-natal care worldwide. This January, State Department officials confirmed that President Obama selected pro-abortion activist Lois Quam to serve as executive director of the GHI. It is disturbing that a woman with such pro-abortion views will be in charge of this powerful and influential global agency. This appointment also illustrates Obama’s desire to increase abortions on a global scale.
The original ideals behind the GHI are noble and noteworthy. The GHI originated at the World Economic Forum in 2002, and its main focus was preventing and fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria on a global scale. At the 2007 UN-sponsored “Women Deliver” conference, the GHI became linked to issues of maternal and child health issues. Susan Yoshihara of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute said of conference, “the plan to link abortion rights to the Global Health Initiative…was announced by abortion rights groups such as International Planned Parenthood and Center for Reproductive Rights as well as the UN Population Fund.”
Pro-abortion President Obama and his administration seem to view this organization as an opportunity to promote abortions on a global scale. Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the GHI would promote “reproductive health care and family planning.” Clinton has made no disguise of the fact that this administration includes abortion under that umbrella. Clinton testified before Congress in April 2009, “We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health and reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal, and rare.”
President Obama further demonstrated his desire to use the GHI has a front to push abortions by his appointment of Lois Quam as executive director. Quam, a former UnitedHealth Group executive, served as a senior adviser on Clinton’s health care task force in the 1990s that promoted a government takeover of healthcare which included taxpayer funded abortions and medical rationing. Quam’s husband, Matt Entenza, also has a pro-abortion history. Entenza, a former state representative, ran and lost a bid to become governor of Minnesota last year. According to Scott Fischbach, an executive of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, Entenza, “spent millions of their own money…he ran as 100% pro-choice and had a long pro-abortion voting record during his time in the Minnesota State House of Representatives.”
Pro-Life organizations and activists must closely monitor the actions of the Global Health Initiative. While the GHI sounds admirable on the surface, it is becoming clear that the Obama administration has designs to twist the original intent of the GHI to fit its own ends of increasing abortions globally.
For more information:
Ertelt, Steven. “Obama Picks Pro-Abortion Activist to Lead Global Health Initiative” LifeNews. 27 Jan 2011. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/27/obama-picks-pro-abortion-activist-to-lead-global-health-initiative/
