Democrat presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been vague in the past about whether she would support any limits on abortion, but she finally settled on a position during her interview with “MTP Daily” host Chuck Todd in the first segment of a two-part interview which aired Sunday.
She stated that she would support restrictions on abortions “in the very end of the third trimester” if they took into account the health of the mother.
That’s another way of saying, no real restrictions. This is Kenneth Gosnell territory.
At the very end of the third trimester, the fully developed baby has dropped and is headed toward the birth canal. At that point, Hillary says she might be able to countenance restrictions on the child’s slaughter.
Asked by Todd if there were “reasonable restrictions” on abortion that she would support, she answered, “I’ve said that there were, that’s under Roe v. Wade, that there can be restrictions in the very end of the third trimester, but they have to take into account the life and health of the mother.”
Hillary harkened back to one of the most shameful episodes of her husband’s presidency to justify her position.
I remember in ’96, Chuck, the president, my husband vetoed a very restrictive legislation on late-term abortions, and he vetoed it at an event in the White House where we invited a lot of women who had faced this very difficult decision, that ought to be made based on their own conscience, their family, their faith, in consultation with doctors. [Women] whose life is threatened themselves if they carry their child to term, and women who are told by doctors that the child they’re carrying will not survive. And so, again, I am where I have been, which is that if there is a way to structure some kind of constitutional restrictions that take into account the life of the mother and her health, then I’m open to that.
Clinton is describing a very small, statistically insignificant number of women. The vast majority of late-term abortions are done for a broad variety of social reasons.
The late Dr. James McMahon performed thousands of partial-birth abortions, and five women he had performed third-trimester abortions on appeared with President Clinton at his April 10, 1996, veto ceremony.
In June, 1995, Dr. McMahon submitted to Congress a detailed breakdown of a “series” of over 2,000 of these abortions that he had performed. He classified only 9% (175 cases) as involving “maternal [health] indications,” of which the most common was “depression.”
Hillary Clinton is drastically out of step with the American people on this issue.
71 percent of Americans support at least some protections for unborn children.
56 percent of Americans would prefer to impose restrictions after 20 weeks. Only 27 percent prefer the current 24-week threshold.
A number of conservative outlets such as Twitchy, the Daily Caller, Breitbart, and Red State have flagged Clinton’s horrendous answer to Chuck Todd’s abortion question.
But mainstream media outlets, who cover Republicans like they are the ones with the extreme position on abortion, apparently don’t think there’s anything wrong with the Democrat front-runner supporting abortion right up until the baby is crowning.