Hillary Clinton Rips Bush Abortion Proposal

July 18, 2008 — -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., blasted a Bush administration proposal Friday that would change the definition of abortion and, she argues, limit women's access to contraception.

The draft proposal written by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), which began circulating around Capitol Hill this week, would require hospitals receiving federal funds to hire medical personnel who oppose forms of contraception including birth control pills.

But Democratic critics including Clinton warn that the Bush administration changes would have "damaging" consequences on women's ability to access birth control.

"The more I learn about these rules by the Bush administration, the more appalled I am and the more determined I am to stop them," Clinton said.

"This is a gratuitous, unnecessary insult to the women of the United States of America. These rules pose a dire threat to women's health, to health-care providers, and to uninsured and low-income Americans seeking care. It is a disgrace, but unfortunately it is not a surprise."

Clinton and other prominent Democratic lawmakers including Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., believe that the proposal poses a serious threat to women's access to contraception.

"Women would watch their contraception coverage disappear overnight," Clinton said Friday outside New York City's Bellevue Hospital.

The New York senator argued that the proposal would "allow health-care providers to classify many forms of contraception as abortions and therefore refuse to provide contraception to women who need it," -- even when state laws guarantee it.

New York, for example, is one of 14 states with laws guaranteeing women's access to emergency contraception, but Clinton warned that the new proposal could change that, leaving sexual assault victims helpless.

"Under these Bush rules, an ideologically-driven hospital administrator or an emergency room supervisor or a doctor or a nurse on duty could deny this woman access to emergency contraception, so the woman who survived the assault would now be at risk of becoming pregnant, denied the care she needs in her hour of greatest need," she said.