Hillary insults Canada over abortion

If the biggest story of March is health care reform, the second biggest is how the Obama Administration has taken a wrecking ball to diplomatic relations with our allies. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton knocked Canada by demanding that they invite several other countries and "indigenous peoples" to a conference of Arctic nations. This is despite the fact that Canada was hosting the conference. It's also despite the fact that Canadian troops are fighting and dying in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today she took the snub to a whole new level.

At issue is the decision by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is promoting better maternal mortality as its signature initiative at the upcoming G8 summit Canada is hosting in June.

Harper was initially reluctant to include contraception in the centerpiece plan Canada is advocating, but he has ruled out including abortion.

That met with opposition from Clinton, a longtime abortion advocate and the top international official in the administration of pro-abortion President Barack Obama.

"You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health," Clinton said at a Tuesday news conference. "And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion."

The Toronto Star described the incident as "a grenade in the lap of her shell-shocked Canadian hosts." It's certainly rare for America to be more progressive on the abortion issue than other western powers. For an American secretary of state to lecture other nations on the need to provide abortions is almost unheard of. It's also diplomatically insulting. Harper may very well agree with Clinton; under his leadership in 2005, Canadian Conservatives dropped opposition to abortion from their party platform. He's likely putting abortion off-limits so as to not offend the sensibilities of others, something Hillary Clinton apparently doesn't understand.

Notice that Clinton said that abortion should be "legal" and "safe". Bill Clinton famously said that abortion in America should be "safe, legal, and rare." His wife tellingly left out the "rare" part. Then again this is the same Hillary Clinton who gave a speech commemorating the founding of the UN Population Fund, which has been accused of aiding and abetting forced abortions in China.

The Obama Administration has already outraged Britain and Israel this month. Looks like we can add Canada to the list too.