Hillary's reaction to Obama's repeal of the global gag rule

Posted By Carolyn O'Hara Saturday, January 24, 2009 - 3:30 PM Share

Secretary Clinton released a statement yesterday on Obama's decision to repeal the Mexico City policy:

President Obama's repeal of the global gag rule, which has prevented women around the world from gaining access to essential information and healthcare services, is a welcomed and important step taken during the first days of the Administration.

For the past seven years, this policy has made it more difficult for women around the world to gain access to essential information and healthcare services. Rather than limiting women's ability to receive reproductive health services, we should be supporting programs that help women and their partners make decisions to ensure their health and the health of their families.

As I said in Beijing at the United Nations 4th World Conference on Women, women must not be denied the right to plan their own families. I look forward to working with the President, my colleagues in the Administration, and the NGO community to promote programs and policies that ensure women and girls have full access to health information and services.

EXPLORE:HILLARY, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, WOMEN
 
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DAN KERVICK

8:11 PM ET

January 25, 2009

Huh? State Department "Reactions" to the White House?

Why is Secretary Clinton offering a "reaction" to the Obama decision? Isn't she part of the same executive branch that repealed the gag rule?

This:

President Obama's repeal of the global gag rule ... is a welcomed and important step taken during the first days of the Administration.

sounds like a statement from a foreign capital. Clinton works for the Obama administration now. Redundant statements from inside the administration, "welcoming" the actions of the head of the administration, are not needed.

 

SAKEL

12:31 AM ET

January 26, 2009

Hillary's Formidable Voice Will be Heard..to End Modern Slavery!

Why is the Secretary of State NOT permitted to go on record as endorsing a presidential incentive which will directly affect foreign policy, for which she has assumed responsibility as SOS, and one which fits in nicely with her earlier statement of women's vital issues affecting, and being included in, national security?

Unbeknownst to you, HIllary was indirectly responsible for the Human Trafficking Act enacted in 2000 under Bill Clinton's presidency and Madeline Albright's auspices as the then Secretary of State. Hillary, the year after her famous Bejing l995 UN Conference speech, visited Thailand and other Asian countries's NGOs with the President and personally interviewed girls 10, 11 and 12 years of age who were deposited to AIDS hospices to die having been discarded by the brothels that employed them as well as their families! The problem of "enslaved pre-teen girl-prostitutes and women in domestic servitude" is something that Hillary had the intelligence and foresight to see and act upon back in the 90s and had found it unacceptable that American foreign policy's agenda in these poverty-striken countries did not address this far-reaching modern slavery issue.

It is amazing that you would rather put a 'gag order' criticizing Hillary's voice on this issue as one which is taking the "shine" away from the President--rather than praising her for raising her formidable voice, in conjunction to his, and work to end this new female slavery that the Bush administration, through its vile, woman-bashing neanderthal policies, had exarcebated and promoted during the last ignominious eight years! Read Kristof at the N.Y. Times....

 

DAN KERVICK

5:16 AM ET

January 26, 2009

No Gag Order Required

What "gag order" are you talking about, sakel? My understanding was that it is the job of the Department of State is to develop and implement the President's foreign policy. That includes communicating the administration's foreign policy to the leaders and peoples of other countries, both though our embassies and in open public fora, and including press statements from the Secretary's own office. So of course the Secretary of State should speak in support of the President's policy, and speak frequently and through many different channels.

But Clinton's tone here is off key. It makes no sense for the Secretary of State to "welcome" the foreign policy decisions of an administration that it is her job to represent and defend. It is supposed to be assumed as a matter of course that the State Department welcomes all the foreign policy decisions the department is charged with implementing, whatever might be the private opinions of the Departments officials and employees. Clinton is certainly on key when she stresses the decision's importance, and would also be on key to re-emphasize those statements, and extend them in ways consistent with presidential policy.

But the Department of State is not a co-equal branch of the government, free to welcome or not welcome decisions in the White House, as though the latter were a different branch of government. The State Department is itself in the executive branch, and is an extension of the presidency.

 

OHIO CITIZEN

8:53 PM ET

January 25, 2009

Repeal of the global gag rule.

This is a clear example of the enormous power of the Presidency. The lives of millions of women around the world can be impacted with the stroke of a pen. Perhaps this is just one of the reasons why so many around the world were glad to see the end of the Bush administration. That gag rule gave a whole new meaning to the bully pulpit. It was a mean policy.

 

PYW

1:31 AM ET

January 26, 2009

Message to Dan

This Web site called it a "reaction," not the State Department. They referred to it as a statement. I think the point of it is to reinforce how vitally important a lifting of the gag rule is. That's why Hillary chose to highlight it.

 

ANNE

1:52 AM ET

January 26, 2009

Good catch PYW.

thanks. : )

 

DAN KERVICK

5:37 AM ET

January 26, 2009

Cinton is a Diplomat Now, and Diplomatic Language is Important

All,

I agree with that this is an enormously important decision, and certainly I enthusiastically welcome it. A more enlightened global posture on women and reproductive rights is one of the many reasons I wanted a Democrat back in the White House. I just think Clinton should have used different language here.

One enormous problem in the Bush administration was that Bush was a very weak leader of the foreign policy of his own administration, especially in his first six years. He had a State Department pursuing one agenda, a Defense Department pursuing another, a Vice President scheming to lord it over everyone else, and a National Security Adviser who was constantly outmaneuvered, and unable to help the President maintain a coherent foreign policy message and administration discipline. Divisions and intrigues in the administration were obvious to all alert observers, at home and abroad, and foreign countries were able to exploit those divisions to play one part of our government off against others.

Given the very public and intense Democratic nomination battle that preceded this administration, a battle viewed all over the world, I think it is especially important for Clinton not to make statements that might suggest to foreign observers that she considers the State Department a separate and somewhat autonomous Hillary Branch of the US Government, a distinct grand duchy within the American kingdom that offers a promising channel for exploitation and divide-and-conquer strategies by foreign leaders. I hope this administration shows much greater unity and discipline than the previous one, and speaks to the world with one voice.

 

ANNE

1:42 PM ET

January 26, 2009

that's pretty desperate.

that's pretty desperate.

 

DAN KERVICK

3:03 PM ET

January 26, 2009

Desperate

In what way?

 

ANNE

3:51 PM ET

January 26, 2009

sorry, i'm not carrying on a

sorry, i'm not carrying on a conversation about how hillary shouldn't speak about things that affect her department and women all over the world.

 

DAN KERVICK

3:59 PM ET

January 26, 2009

I never started such a

I never started such a conversation. As I said, of course she should speak about those things.

 

ANNE

5:20 PM ET

January 26, 2009

"I think it is especially

"I think it is especially important for Clinton not to make statements"

 

DAN KERVICK

5:32 PM ET

January 26, 2009

Please Re-read Anne

The sentence fragment you are pleased to quote was part of a longer sentence:

I think it is especially important for Clinton not to make statements that might suggest to foreign observers that she considers the State Department a separate and somewhat autonomous Hillary Branch of the US Government, a distinct grand duchy within the American kingdom that offers a promising channel for exploitation and divide-and-conquer strategies by foreign leaders.

I also said:

So of course the Secretary of State should speak in support of the President's policy, and speak frequently and through many different channels.

Thus, it should be pretty clear that I never said or even suggested that our top diplomat “shouldn’t make statements”, but only said that she shouldn’t make statements of a particular kind, that is, statements that suggest any kind of gap between White House policy and State Department policy.

 

ANNE

6:19 PM ET

January 26, 2009

When you are done doing all

When you are done doing all you can do to make the world a better place (i won't hold my breath) you really ought to step over to the state dept and let hillary know what channels she SHOULD speak through, if according to you she should not speak through her own.

 

DAN KERVICK

6:51 PM ET

January 26, 2009

Honestly, you are simply

Honestly, you are simply making things up Anne. I never said that Clinton shouldn't speak through her own channels, by which I assume you mean State Department channels.

My criticism was entirely about what she said in this instance, and how she said it. I am at a loss to understand how you have inferred from this, first, a blanket statement that she shouldn't say anything and, now, a blanket statement that she shouldn't say anything through her own channels.

If you want to criticize me, please at least criticize the things I actually say.

 

PYW

3:48 AM ET

January 26, 2009

You're welcome!

:-)

 

PYW

10:08 PM ET

January 26, 2009

I don't see ...

How the language Hillary used in her statement suggests any gap between the State Dept. and the White House. If anything, her statement makes clear the opposite. Trust me, Hillary understands the importance of the administration speaking with one voice, given what happened during the last eight years.

 

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