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Clinton Announces She’s for Taxpayer-funded Abortions
Via NRO, Hillary Clinton wants to end the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother. Via C-SPAN, here’s the relevant portion of the speech in question, in which she also praises Planned Parenthood, whose political action group has already endorsed her for president.
While I doubt that the Hyde Amendment can be repealed given Republican control of the House and Senate, expect widespread protests and civil disobedience if it were to happen.
Clinton’s move signals how far left the Democratic candidate is, and how far she is willing to go to win the presidency. Like Obama, she will tear this country apart to gain power.
Published in Politics
The video is not working for me right now. But yeah, I stay by that language. Bill Clinton could compromise on anything during his presidency, and he compromised a lot, but abortion was untouchable, the Democrats third rail. It cannot be touched and you get kudos in the party for expanding it. Obama cut his political teeth on supporting killing babies that had survived an abortion! Can you imagine that?
Agree. Of all issues, it’s my number one issue.
It is different, but, if you view the Hyde Amendment as essentially an accounting gimmick (my words from a post above), it’s not much different. Hillary is proposing to do away with the Hyde Amendment, which, at a minimum, forces PP to undergo a degree of inconvenience in segregating which funds are used to pay for abortions. The funding bill does not do away with the Amendment, but observes it, although it gives PP money. I think it’s also possible to make a case that doing away with Hyde is a first step in securing more funding.
I don’t understand; how could having the government pay for it possibly be a principled libertarian position? Perhaps you misunderstood someone? Someone who is not actually libertarian, maybe, but tries to pretend to be one?
Is this a response to this comment?
If so, maybe you could look at some of the links I shared, which are all from the past two weeks, instead of one a month old, and respond to that?
I don’t have a problem with Breitbart links.
Thanks.
Citation?
Agreed. The Left will stop at nothing to worship their abortion god – it is the “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them”.
Ah yes the Obamacare repeal bill in the final year of Obama. Yes, let’s attach PP funding to a bill that isn’t going to go ANYWHERE after we attach it to the spending bill that was guaranteed to get signed. One is a gimmick to get me waving my flag that “we are doing something” the other is just more of the same from the linguini spined caucus.
Sure, but in the end you are talking about funding PP after a production worthy of a Tony and funding PP without the pretense of hypocrisy.
I can’t believe that someone would try that, seriously. You expect me to believe that sending an individual bill gutting Obamacare and defunding PP is going to actually accomplish anything other than get through the House, maybe the Senate, and then vetoed by the President? What is going to then happen is that McRyan will come to the cameras and explain to us that they don’t have the votes to override and that this is a clear message that the American People want a Republican president so they can really take it to the Left, blah, blah, blah. I’m sorry I am not falling for it……again.
I’ve been anti Libertarian around Ricochet, but I have to agree with Tom. I have never seen Libertarians side with government payment for abortion or almost anything. And as to the abortion issue, I have been pleasantly surprised by a number of Libertarians that are either for eliminating abortion or reducing it. If you consider the embryo/fetus as a living human being, then it is endowed with the right to life and protection, a fundamental Libertarian principle. Those that don’t see it as a human being, then of course are pro-choice. Justice Kennedy on the SCOTUS is probably the most Libertarian of the justices, and is pro-life.
That is very counter to my experience in the “real world.” Every time a flesh and blood, self professed libertarian has crossed my path and we engage in this subject, they are always of the opinion that it is the decision of the woman whether or not to keep the child. They typically use the whole “we will end up paying for it via welfare anyway” argument to justify their view.
Thanks, Manny.
I wouldn’t describe Kennedy that way. At all.
That’s very nearly the opposite of my experience but — regardless — allow me to be your first:
Government should not pay for abortions. In addition to the general objections for government being involved in “healthcare,” abortion is overwhelmingly elective, relatively inexpensive, and — moreover — be believed by many citizens to be murder.
For what it’s worth, I say this as someone who believes abortion should be legal in the first trimester, but generally treated as homicide thereafter.
When libertarians are polled on this, they generally break down as 2/3 pro-choice and 1/3 pro-life. Mollie Hemingway (who is both furiously pro-life and furiously libertarian) hastens to point out that the only libertarians who gain national prominence in elective office are pro-life. (Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Justin Amash, etc.)
Its unusual that you’ll find an actual libertarian, including myself, who supports forcing people to violate their own conscience to pay for abortion.
Seconded strongly.
I’d add former senator Tom Coburn as well.
It’s not.
Most libertarians, like most conservatives and liberals, are unthoughtful cheerleaders for their chosen cause. All that matters is the conclution they want and then it’s just a matter of finding an argument that they believe leads to that conclution.
I don’t really like talking about abortion because I am very pro-children (I have two now and want at least four), and abortion to me is an unthinkable and a plainly awful choice to make, but I can’t convince myself it is permissible to force someone to carry their child to term. And I can’t convince myself that a homicide charge is appropriate or proportional to whatever impermissible act may be going on, even in late term.
What I think might be permissible, is whenever a mother decides she doesn’t want to carry the baby, she goes to a hospital to deliver and the doctors are free to do whatever they can to save the baby. I doubt the mom is morally required to be allowed to choose to destroy the child before delivery.
At least to me this seems to be a possible compromise between the mother’s right to choose not to be someone’s life support, and the child’s right to live. If the baby is old enough that it can be saved, and the hospital is willing to bear those costs, that sounds quite permissible.
Obviously none of this should be paid for with confiscated wealth, but that possibly true about everything the government does.
I didn’t mean to say he was Libertarian. I said the most Libertarian. Who would you say then is the most Libertarian?
Fred Cole’s 1/3 pro-life, 2/3 pro abort is probably right. Both Rand Paul and his father are pro-life.
Probably Thomas, but that could just be me saying “I really like Justice Thomas and think he’s a great jurist.”
I’d feel on better footing saying that he’s the most libertarian-friendly, which is not to imply that he’s less conservative-friendly.
Agreed.
And while I’m a broken record on this, I want to emphasize that being pro-life in no way diminishes their status as libertarians.
This runs counter to almost every experience I’ve had and more importantly counter to the experience you have had here on Ricochet.
I’d love to find a libertarian who advocates for government financing of private medical procedures. It would be a rare bird indeed.
About 80% of the libertarians I know are pro life except in case of the life of the mother / rape / incest. And I hang out with the anarchist variety for the most part.
I would have to count again, but 100% of the libertarians I know do not want the government to pay for it.
Thomas
Kennedy is anything BUT Libertarian or even Lib Leaning. Now if schitzophrenia is an ideology, then he is probably that. Kennedy’s judicial philosophy is determined by how the winds are blowing at any particular time and if there is no wind then he comes up with the right conclusion, but it can hardly be anything similar to a thought process.
If it wasn’t for Thomas’ abominable 4th amendment jurisprudence it would clearly be Thomas.
What this all really means is….Epstein for the court!!
And his utter gibberish dissent in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn.
Yeah that was an odd one.