Jeff Fortenberry: “Recently a woman came to my children's school to talk about the healing power of forgiveness. She was a survivor of the…”

“Recently a woman came to my children's school to talk about the healing power of forgiveness. She was a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide when nearly 1 million people were mercilessly hunted, hacked and killed. Now let's fast forward to the year 2007. In an ironic twist, Rwanda's President Kagame expressed his interest in reducing the number of births of children in that country by 50 percent. In recent weeks, confusing reports have surfaced as to whether the Rwandan Government had launched a campaign setting a target for hundreds of thousands of male sterilizations. While the reports which implied possible complicity of U.S.-funded organizations were subsequently dismissed, the concerns they raised are very real. Let's note China's one-child policy, or Fujimori's Peru. Mr. Chairman, the United States should be a champion for human dignity, and yet, sadly, we have our own sorted past with sterilization campaigns. In 1924, the State of Virginia passed what was called the Racial Integrity Act, which remained intact well into my own lifetime, until it was overturned by the Supreme Court.”