On Wednesday, while appearing before a House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton single-handedly put the issue of  safe abortion services back on the U.S. foreign policy agenda. And that is huge!

Clinton said, “Family planning is an important part of women’s health and reproductive health includes access to abortion, that I believe should be safe, legal and rare.”

She presented this as the Obama administration’s perspective, and in response to Rep. Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) attack on Margaret Sanger and the full range of birth control including abortion.

By including abortion as an integral part of women’s healthcare, Clinton stopped the insane political dance that has been going on since the early 1980’s.  As  Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality,  wrote so clearly “…Clinton spoke the truth and thereby shattered the myth that has existed for so long that we could talk about family planning, reproductive health, women’s rights, women’s health or even human rights, and not say the word ‘abortion.’ ”

Clinton broke ground with her statement. Jacobs correctly said,  Clinton’s remarks were the  “most courageous a secretary of state — or any administration official — has ever made on reproductive rights and one of the most courageous statements made by a secretary of state of any kind, on any issue, ever.”

Clinton as First Lady, then as Senator, and now as Secretary of State, has relentlessly championed women’s healthcare.  She has been unrelenting in her understanding, commitment, and advocacy.

To watch and hear Secretary of State Clinton’s remarks and response to Rep. Chris Smith: