Next to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton may be the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in American history. Clinton, and the Left in general, attempt to mask the heinous nature of the procedure they support by employing euphemisms such as “reproductive health” and “choice,” but in reality what they’re championing is the termination of innocent life, even at the latest stages of development.
Here are three things you need to know about Hillary Clinton’s beliefs regarding abortion:
1. Hillary Wants Taxpayer Funding for Abortions
Clinton has said that she wants to eliminate the Hyde amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars being used for abortions–although all money going to Planned Parenthood is fungible, meaning it can be moved around, essentially rendering the Hyde amendment moot.
On January 10, 2016, Clinton said:
“First of all, I will always defend Planned Parenthood, and I will say consistently and proudly, Planned Parenthood should be funded, supported, and appreciated, not undermined, misrepresented, and demonized. I believe we need to protect access to safe and legal abortion, not just in principle, but in practice.
Any right that requires you to take extraordinary measures to access it is no right at all…not as long as we have laws on the books like the Hyde amendment, making it harder for low-income women to exercise their full rights.”
From July 1, 2013 – June 30, 2014, Planned Parenthood received approximately $528.4 million in federal funding, roughly $103.6 million of which went to “family planning,” which includes abortions. Hillary Clinton wants more, telling Fusion: “I would like to see Planned Parenthood even get more funding.”
Planned Parenthood is the nation’s most prolific abortion provider, accounting for more than 300,000 abortions a year.
2. Hillary Wants Abortion Available Until Birth
Hillary Clinton is such an extreme advocate for abortion that she refuses to entertain the idea of late-term restrictions unless exceptions are added. On October 8, 2000, Clinton said:
“I have said many times that I can support a ban on late-term abortions, including partial-birth abortions, so long as the health and life of the mother is protected. I’ve met women who faced this heart-wrenching decision toward the end of a pregnancy. Of course it’s a horrible procedure. No one would argue with that. But if your life is at stake, if your health is at stake, if the potential for having any more children is at stake, this must be a woman’s choice.”
This argument is a patent falsity.
In a piece for Fox News, Lila Rose explained that “abortion is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life. The Dublin Declaration makes this clear, with more than 1,000 signatures from obstetricians, neonatologists, pediatricians, midwives, and other medical professionals claiming that fact.”
Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former OB-GYN who performed over 1,200 abortions in his career, also claims that the “life of the mother argument” is nonsense:
“During my time at Albany Medical Center, I managed hundreds of such cases by ‘terminating’ pregnancies [via live delivery by C-section] to save mothers’ lives. In all those hundreds of cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.”
During his 2013 testimony before Congress, Dr. Levatino said that at 24-weeks gestation, “the dilation of the cervix that’s required for a D&E [Dilation and Evacuation] abortion…takes at least 36 hours.” Later abortions, he said, “can necessitate almost three days of preparation prior to performance of the procedure.”
He continued:
“It was mentioned earlier, the idea that abortion is needed to save women’s lives…As a faculty member at the Albany Medical College, I have treated hundreds of women with severe problems with their pregnancies. Pregnancies that were life-threatening to them–cardiac disease, diabetes, cancers, toxemia, elevated blood pressure in pregnancy.
I’ll illustrate with one case that I dealt with personally. A patient came in at 27-weeks of gestation, blood pressure 220 over 140. You know a normal blood pressure is 120 over 80. This woman is moments or hours away from a stroke. We stabilized her, delivered her; she had a healthy baby in the end, and she did well as well.
I was able to stabilize and deliver her within an hour… Abortion would be worthless in that situation…at 27-weeks of gestation, it would have taken at least three days to even prepare her to be able to go through the procedure. This is an important point when we talk about abortion in terms of saving women’s lives.”
Hillary Clinton, however, wants “life-saving” late-term abortions protected, either out of ignorance regarding the time it takes to prepare for the procedure, or for other reasons altogether.
3. Hillary Voted Against the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
In 2003, Hillary Clinton voted with 32 other Senators against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which prohibited doctors from knowingly performing an “intact dilation and extraction.” A physician caught breaking this law can face fines and up to two years in prison.
For the uninitiated, an intact dilation and extraction is a procedure in which an infant, approximately 18-weeks gestation or older, is almost entirely extracted from the mother in breech position, leaving its head inside the uterus. The doctor then makes an incision in the base of the infant’s skull, and uses a suction cannula to remove its brain, thus collapsing the head. Prior to the procedure, the doctor administers digoxin via a needle into the infant’s head or heart in order to induce cardiac arrest and death.
This following is an illustrated video explaining the procedure (warning: graphic):
Regarding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, Clinton said:
“Clearly, the administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle see this as an opportunity to begin to eliminate Roe v. Wade, and the possibility of safe, legal and rare abortions in this country. And many young women don’t seem to understand that this is not an option that they can take for granted.”
Hillary Clinton’s position on abortion should be viewed as extreme, but it’s often glossed over by the press. Euphemisms like “choice,” and “women’s reproductive freedom” are used to muddy public perception about abortion. Clinton likely takes advantage of these euphemisms in an effort to gain the votes of those who are unaware of the disturbing reality of abortion.