Canadians hosted hundreds of American air passengers whose planes
were grounded on 9/11. They opened their hearts and their homes
to us. During the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-81, fearless
Canadian diplomats in Tehran helped smuggle out of that maddened
country endangered Americans.
None of that seemed to matter last week. Not content with putting
an end to America’s historic “special relationship” with Britain,
nor with bullying the U.S.’ only reliable ally in the Mideast,
Israel, the Obama administration has launched an attack on our
Northern neighbor, Canada. Their unguided missile landed squarely
on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. It was Hillary.
Oh, my! Even the very liberal Toronto Globe and Mail
felt the sting of Madam Secretary’s tongue-lashing. “It was the
third time in a two-day visit to Canada that…Clinton gave
Canadian hosts a headache,” writes Campbell Clark. Short work.
But then, she was always capable of giving us three headaches in
one day.
Clinton publicly rebuked the Conservative government of Prime
Minister Stephen Harper. Harper wants to make maternal health the
centerpiece of Canada’s initiative at the next G8 summit.
What could be wrong with that? Canada famously cares about her
role in international humanitarian efforts. Canadians race to be
first on the scene at international disasters like the recent
Haitian earthquake or the Asian tsunami of 2004. Canadians can be
justly proud of their record.
But Madam Secretary wasted no time in kicking the props out from
under the Harper humanitarian initiative. “You cannot have
maternal health without reproductive health,” she
bluntly informed her Canadian hosts. “And reproductive health
includes contraception and family planning and access to legal,
safe abortion.”
Now, this is curious. When she was First Lady (ah, those were the
days), Hillary Clinton said abortion is “wrong”
(Newsweek, October 31, 1994). Now that she is Secretary
of State in the most avidly pro-abortion administration in U.S.
history, she not only thinks America must have
abortion-on-demand, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, but she also
thinks the Canadians should be scolded in their own capital city
if they fail to promote abortion throughout the world.
This is also interesting, isn’t it, as a reflection on the
just-passed ObamaCare bill? A number of formerly pro-life
Democrats fell for the offer of an Executive Order on taxpayer
funding of abortion. President Obama was the most pro-abortion
state senator in history, the most pro-abortion U.S. Senator in
history.
Still, these credulous Members of Congress somehow thought he
would give them a fig leaf so they could vote for his signature
piece of legislation. Did they know that this administration
believes “you cannot have maternal health… without abortion”?
Were they prepared to deny coverage for maternal health? Of
course not.
So, in her most undiplomatic diplomatic visit, Hillary
Clinton gave the lie to the notion that ObamaCare does not
include taxpayer funding for abortion. Not here. Not in Canada,
not anywhere in the world.
“Abortion is central to everything in life and how we want to
live it,” said the late liberal leader Lawrence Lader. Lader,
along with Dr. Bernard Nathanson, founded NARAL, the abortion
advocacy group. Nathanson famously repented, filmed “The Silent
Scream,” and has become a devout pro-life Catholic. Lader never
yielded an inch.
It used to be the case that major Democratic candidates were
expected to visit Israel, Italy, and Ireland. The Three I’s, it
was called. That was to undergird their appeal to large
minorities in the U.S. — Jews, Italians, and Irish.
But now, liberals must go hat in hand to NARAL and Planned
Parenthood. And if that causes trouble with our traditional
allies on the international scene — allies as staunch and
courageous as Canada — so be it. To be true to her mission to
the North, Madam Secretary’s limo should have borne the flag she
is actually serving — the Jolly Roger.
