Secretary of State Clinton will always be a lightning rod for people who are at odds with her or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. I remember back when Bill Clinton was making his first run for president, and there were wild stories out there that said Secretary of State Clinton’s legal writings urged children to rule over their parents, I looked up her writings. They were good, solid pieces that made strong arguments on children having rights, not becoming their own parents in terms of decisionmaking. Her positions had been totally skewed.

Now she is secretary of state and few people have talked about how she has buckled down and gotten off to an excellent start. (Ironically, I think one person who did note that was Pat Buchanan). She has done what she did as a freshman senator: quietly worked hard. Her voice was loudest in Africa, and I suspect that was so because she is passionate about the issues many Africans face, and she is especially passionate about the issues African women face and the roles they could be playing in making their communities and countries better.  

And thank goodness for that, too.

Highlighting women’s abilities and the constraints in many African countries that bar them from using their talents, isn’t just some sort of kooky feminist show, as some critics make it seem. Hillary is exactly right — and those involved in serious development work know it — that women hold the key in their countries to economic progress and improved family health and life. Many of the most effective social and economic programs were started and are run by women, who then put the money they earn to use for the betterment of their children, families and their communities.

Certainly not all poor men are wasteful and women are upstanding. I help support a young lady in Uganda and her mother has drunk away some of the money I have given her to support their family. But go to any poor twon, any poor village or displacement camp, and you’ll see many men simply nto contributing their share to their families’ well-being. Women need to be given as many opportunities and as much support as possible to step up amd contribute when men cannot or will not.     

Women in Africa are an untapped economic engine that can help lift their countries. 

Thank goodness Hillary understands that.

According to Population Action International: “The policy disqualifies foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from receiving U.S. family planning funds if they provide legal abortion services in cases other than a threat to the life of the woman, rape, or incest; if they provide counseling and referral for abortion; or if they lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their own country.”

Photo Credit: Barbara Kinzie, Jhpiego

It also wasted precious U.S. aid money by impeding the improvement of women’s health care in desperately poor nations. Studies repeatedly have shown that one of the main engines of development is the improved status — physical and material — of women. To deny women a full range of medical information and treatment (and I’m not talking about abortion here) is to construct obstacles to economic progress for entire families in struggling parts of the world where women not only care for the children and the home, but often do the farming or other income-generating activities. It’s putting ideology above people and pragmatism.

The policy was first instituted in 1984 by President Reagan. It h been on a yo-yo ever since, with Democratic President Bill Clinton lifting it in 1993 and Republican President Bush reviving it in 2001. So Obama doesn’t need simply to claim his date on the calendar when he rescinded the policy. He needs to figure out how to prevent the policy from being reinstated.  

The obvious solution is a legislative one. That route was attempted in September 2007, when U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) and U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D., N.Y.) introduced an amendment to a State Department funding bill that would have lifted those restrictions to U.S. aid as set out in Mexico City policy.  President Bush scuttled their effort by signing an executive order, which modified the rule, but still hamstrung women’s health groups.

There needs to be another legislative effort that rescinds the restrictions on U.S. aid for family planning and women’s health and funds an aggressive education campaign to promote abortion only in the cases of incest, rape and the life of the mother. Abortion should not be used as contraception in other cases. 

One of the other big problems with he global gag rule is that it showed U.S. ignorance about the status and rights of women in many developing countries. A nuanced, pragmantic policy that uses education to address the problem that comes with abusive practices against women will have a far more enduring impact on reducing the incidence of unnecessary abortions while providing women with a full range of health care.