Hillary Clinton is a fighter. She has been for her entire life. She’s not done yet, in fact it seems she’s just getting warmed up.
Asked which Republicans is most troubling for young women, 2016 presidential candidate and former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton blasted the entire lot of them, “It’s a nine-way tie…They’ve all got the wrong ideas about women’s health and bodies and autonomy and futures.”
In an interview featured today on Cosmopolitan.com, Sec. Clinton was asked which of the Republican candidates was most concerning for young women. She replied that it was hard to choose just one:
If you look just at the question of reproductive health, it’s clear just how dangerous — really truly dangerous — their ideas are. Every single Republican candidate would work to roll back the clock on safe and legal abortion. Some would even prohibit it in cases of rape or incest. We know exactly what that means. When it’s harder to get a safe abortion, desperate women will get unsafe abortions. History is very clear on that. If we care about the lives and health of women and girls, we have to protect access to safe and legal abortion.
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But the problems with the Republican platform are even bigger than denying women the right to make medical choices. Clinton pointed out that they all want to defund Planned Parenthood, “That means less funding for mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, HIV tests, and other essential health care that women — especially low-income women — depend on to stay healthy, and even to stay alive.”
Clinton made it personal by saying she wished Republican candidates “would talk to mothers who caught their breast cancer early because they got screened, thanks to Planned Parenthood. Or young women who avoided unintended pregnancies, and were able to graduate college and start families when they felt more prepared to give their kids a great life.”
“So it’s a nine-way tie,” the former Secretary of State announced. “All the Republican candidates are on the wrong side of this issue. They’ve all got the wrong ideas about women’s health and bodies and autonomy and futures.”
Women’s constitutionally protected freedoms are at risk this election. If this were any other group, we’d place a high value on it but for some reason, women’s issues are not seen as cool. To lock women away in prison for having a miscarriage, to take away their authority over their own bodies and thus destiny, these things are seen as okay enough that they are happening in this great land of freedom. They are all but ignored by the press.
Clinton has said she would fight to end the Hyde Amendment – not just standing up for Planned Parenthood, but standing up for poor women’s right to the same freedom as women who are not poor. This is a huge policy issue that is being widely ignored, but arguably, nothing impacts a woman’s economic life more than her ability to plan her family and have control over her body.
The Republican candidates stance on women’s liberty is terrifying, from their false attacks on Planned Parenthood to their belief in the Republican Platform calling for a Personhood Amendment — which would mean even the life of the mother would not be an acceptable reason for an abortion — there is a lot at stake this election.
Clinton is a life-ling fighter for women and girls. She has never stopped fighting to elevate women and girls around the globe. This country desperately needs a president that will take this mantel as one of the big fights. Whichever candidate wins the Democratic primary, this issue must not be allowed to be ignored.
This country must fight to remedy the shame of what is being done to women right now. But let’s take that even further, let’s get rid of the Hyde Amendment.
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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