Obamacare abroad

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. | March 22, 2010

Last Thursday State Department deputy secretary Jacob Lew presided at the rollout of a report at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on what they are calling “smart” global health policy. Former U.S. Central Command Admiral William Fallon and CARE CEO Helene Gayle co-chaired the commission leading to the report.

Lew touted the fact that the Obama administration would be using funds from American initiatives to fight specific diseases such as HIV/AIDs, malaria and tuberculosis and using them for the new agenda. The new agenda admirably puts emphasis on maternal and child health. However, as I have noted elsewhere, Secretary of State Clinton has made it clear that the Obama maternal and child health agenda includes abortion rights.

Notably, Lew hinted at the similarity of the global report and Obamacare. He credited Gayle for shaping both by “playing and integral role for shaping our nation’s approach to improving health here at home and around the world.”

It is worrisome that Gayle is an avid advocate for an international human right to abortion on demand. She was a key figure at the 2007 Women Deliver conference and a founding partner of the International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights which seeks to make abortion rights part of a new international right to maternal health.

It is reassuring that Fallon is a devout Catholic and known as a man of integrity. It would be surprising if he bought into the tactic of advancing abortion rights through maternal and newborn health. The commission also included Clinton-era figures such as former HHS secretary and abortion rights advocate Donna Shalala, former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, and former Republican senator Bill Frist.

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