We've Noticed a Difference

This isn’t a Republican party site. I’ve thrown out a small forest of Republican requests for donations since dutifully voting for a certain war hero/reacher-across-aisles in November 2008. But I do get peevish at all the comments I hear that there’s no practical difference between the political parties. Here is yet one more example of how wrong that is.

US avoids anti-abortion debate at UN meeting

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS – A U.N. meeting to assess progress in advancing the fight for women's equality that ended Friday had a dramatically different slant than a similar session held five years ago: This time, the United States was not trying to make an anti-abortion declaration a crucial theme.

Much of the 2005 meeting to take stock of what countries had done to implement the landmark platform of action adopted at the 1995 U.N. women's conference in Beijing was consumed by the Bush administration's demand that the final declaration make clear that women are not guaranteed a right to abortion.

By contrast, abortion was a non-issue during the two-week session that concluded Friday with a rousing speech by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had electrified the 1995 Beijing conference when she was first lady.

. . . . At the 2005 review conference. . . .The Bush administration questioned the reaffirmation of the Beijing platform because of reproductive rights and the abortion issue, which were "hot issues," she said. But the Obama administration strongly backs the platform, as Clinton stressed Friday.

You can read the entire article here.