The Obama administration’s UN ambassador gave a rundown of the sweeping changes they have made to advance abortion rights and access globally.

“In a speech last week at Howard University Law School, United States (US) Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Susan E. Rice recapped the Obama Administration’s foreign policy departures from previous Bush Administration policy. Rice also subtly redefined terms used in UN documents to mark a substantive policy shift on abortion.

“Reviewing the new Administration’s first nine months in office, Rice touted Obama’s reversal of the “Mexico City policy” that had prevented US funding of organizations engaged in abortion overseas and his decision to fund the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). The Bush Administration had cut aid to the UN population control agency after the US State Department under Colin Powell determined that the UNFPA was complicit in China’s forced abortion policy.”

It’s all in the wording.

“Although in her Howard University speech Rice never uttered the word “abortion,” she claimed that the Bush Administration’s Mexico City policy had “barred U.S. assistance to programs that support family planning and reproductive health services,” and that now members of Obama’s UN team “no longer reflexively oppose mentions of reproductive health.”

As if calling abortion “reproductive health” makes it about reproduction and/or health, when it is about neither.

“William Saunders, Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs for Americans United for Life, noted however that the Bush Administration “did not oppose family planning or reproductive health care” per se, but “only opposed terminology or practices that promoted abortion.”

Thankfully, C-Fam is there to make the distinction, and this important clarification:

“Administration watchers note that Rice’s apparent equation of abortion with “reproductive health” follows that of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s redefinition of the term to include “access to abortion” when questioned by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee. UN member states have never agreed to such a definition, although pro-abortion UN agencies and advocacy groups routinely use it that way.

“The linguistic shift could impact debate on US ratification of the Disabilities Convention. Although the Disabilities Convention is the first binding treaty to mention “sexual and reproductive health,” the official report of proceedings noted that inclusion of the term was “not intended to alter” pro-life policies of ratifying states, and at least 15 nations made statements in the General Assembly at the time interpreting “sexual and reproductive health” as excluding abortion. The Bush administration delegation affirmed that the phrase “cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion.”

What a difference an election makes.