Both Are Pro-Abortion

 

Clinton and Sanders lay out their abortion on demand/paid for by you agenda at Detroit Town Hall

By Dave Andrusko

Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) [AP]

We’ve posted multiple times about the anger/unease/frustration expressed by assorted and sundry pro-abortionists that after seven Democratic presidential debates, the candidates (all resolutely pro-abortion) had not been asked a single question about abortion. That dry spell ended yesterday when Fox News hosted a town hall in Detroit with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.). What did we learn from their respective answers? [1]
For starters that having answered questions (in her own manner) about abortion many times, Clinton was much more adroit –that is to say evasive and insincere–than Sanders. In response to similar questions from Bret Bair, they both landed at the same point: no limitations/restrictions in practice at any time during pregnancy.
But Sanders said straightforwardly what Clinton did between qualifications and yes-but responses. “Can you name a single circumstance at any point in a pregnancy in which you would be okay with abortion being illegal?” Baier asked Sanders.

“It’s not a question of me being okay,” Sanders said, thanking Baier for the question. “… Let me be very clear about it. I know not everybody here will agree with me. I happen to believe that it is wrong for the government to be telling a woman what to do with her own body. I think, I believe, and I understand there are honest people. I mean, I have a lot of friends, some supporters, some disagree. They hold a different point of view, and I respect that. But that is my view.”

Following a quick Sanders detour that blasted Republicans, Baier tried again: “I guess the genesis of the question is that there are some Democrats who say after five months, with the exception of the life of the mother or the health of the baby that perhaps that’s something to look at. You’re saying no.”

Sanders: “I am very strongly pro-choice. That is a decision to be made by the woman, her physician and her family. That’s my view.”

Baier had given Sanders the opportunity, which he rejected and which Clinton would seize upon. He couldn’t think of any exception. (BTW, presumably Baier meant by “health of the baby,” situations in which a prenatal diagnosis concludes the baby would be born with anomalies incompatible with life.) When it was her turn (they were interviewed separately), Clinton immediately segued into last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments over Texas’s HB 2.
“Do you think a child should have any legal rights or protections before it’s born?” Baier said. “Or do you think there should not be any restrictions on any abortions at any stage in a pregnancy?”

“Well, again, let me put this in context, because it’s an important question. Right now the Supreme Court is considering a decision that would shut down a lot of the options for women in Texas, and there have been other legislatures that have taken similar steps to try to restrict a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. Under Roe v. Wade, which is rooted in the Constitution, women have this right to make this highly personal decision with their family in accordance with their faith, with their doctor. It’s not much of a right if it is totally limited and constrained. So I think we have to continue to stand up for a woman’s right to make these decisions, and to defend Planned Parenthood, which does an enormous amount of good work across our country.”

Having heard Clinton’s filibuster, Baier said, “Just to be clear, there’s no — without any exceptions?”

“No,” Clinton said. “I have been on record in favor of a late pregnancy regulation that would have exceptions for the life and health of the mother. I object to the recent effort in Congress to pass a law saying after 20 weeks, you know, no such exceptions, because although these are rare, Bret, they sometimes arise in the most complex, difficult medical situation.”

Baier: “Fetal malformities [malformations] and … ”

Clinton: “And threats to the woman’s health.”

Baier: “Sure.”

So, in sum, what was the answer from the woman who, while in the Senate, voted against the ban on partial-birth abortions?
Clinton’s against requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and requiring abortion clinics to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers (the Supreme Court case).
She’s against a ban on abortions performed on babies capable of experiencing excruciating pain while they are being killed (the “after 20 weeks” reference).
Clinton is against a ban on any abortion performed at any point in pregnancy if there is not the all-purpose escape clause—the “health of the mother.”
But everybody—surely every pro-abortionist—already knew this. Why did they want the issue raised in the debates?
Just to get them on the record? Possibly but unlikely.
To move the discussion beyond “support for Roe v. Wade”? Sure.
The objective is to try to demonize even the most commonsense limitation—which Clinton is good at—and to move on to other parts of the ever-expanding abortion agenda. Near the top is ending the Hyde Amendment, a limitation on federal funding which is conservatively estimated to have saved at least a million lives.
And in addition to all that (as an article in the Rolling Stone maintained in January), they want the Democratic candidates to explain “How will they lead a national conversation that questions the assumptions that abortion is somehow always a difficult decision, or even a moral failure?”
Voila! The complete “normalization” of abortion, paid for by you and me, to annihilate kids up until the moment of birth.
That’s the Democratic position on abortion.
[1] Kudos to the Washington Post for transcribing both answers in their entirety.

Source: NRLC News