2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumGiven Hillary's stated willingness to compromise on abortion rights...
Hillary stated the following regarding her willingness to compromise on abortion rights. These are her words:
HILLARY CLINTON: 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. Those stories left a searing impression on me. Women who think their pregnancy is going well and then wake up and find some really terrible problem. Women whose life is threatened if they carry their child to term, and women who are told by doctors that the child they're carrying will not survive.
Again, I am where I have been, which is that if there's a way to structure some kind of constitutional restriction that take into account the life of the mother and her health, then I'm open to that. But I have yet to see the Republicans willing to actually do that, and that would be an area, where if they included health, you could see constitutional action.
Now unless, I misread the above, it sounds like Hillary would be open to potentially accepting legislation that would outlaw an outright ban on late-term abortions as long as it did not threaten a woman's life. Please correct me if you think I am wrong on that interpretation.
Now... the difficult question.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/texas-republican-wants-women-carry-deceased-fetuses-full-term
The above link is to a Texas politician, Rep. Matt Schaefer who put forward an amendment that would make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after 20 weeks, even if a fetus has a severe and irreversible abnormality, effectively forcing families with wanted, but unsustainable pregnancies to carry to term at the behest of the state and against the advice of their doctors or their own wishes.
So my question is: Is this the kind of bill that Hillary might be willing to compromise on if it had a stipulation that an abortion could be performed in the case of potential harm to the mother?
If Hillary has been misunderstood on her recent comment about being "open" to compromise on abortion, she could clear it up pretty easily by saying that she would accept no compromises on abortion rights. But she has done the opposite. She has sent a signal, to the right, that she is to the right of Sanders on the issue of abortion rights, that she is ready to "talk about it". How far would she go? Do we have a right to know? I certainly think so.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)She said previously that we can "find common ground" with the other side on reproductive rights. This was met with a lot of criticism, but she really doubled down when she signaled her willingness to compromise on abortion.
I guess she thinks she has it sewn up with women, but that will kill her with younger women who this will impact more than the older ones, her core.
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)to get her to clarify this one.
auntpurl
(4,311 posts)She is currently running for President of the United States, not President of Democrats. She has to do a certain amount of pandering. This is politics, not hopscotch.
Hillary has been fighting for women's rights her whole career. But if she turned around now and said, "Abortion is off the table; I'll veto any abortion restriction that comes across my desk", the Republicans will run that in all 50 states and we can kiss the WH goodbye.
This is why abortion is a WEDGE ISSUE, because there's no way for Democrats to win. Hillary is threading the needle with political expedience for the campaign - she's never going to do anything while she's in office that would hurt women's reproductive rights.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)shows that she's already crossed MY line.