Hillary Clinton wants the U.S. to start paying for women to abort their babies around the world.
The pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate told an Iowa town hall group Sunday that she wants the U.S. to get around a law baring U.S. foreign aid for abortion, according to CNN.
Clinton’s remarks were in response to a question about the Helms Amendment, which prohibits the use of foreign assistance funds for abortions as a method of family planning. A woman who identified herself as a police officer asked Clinton about her position on the Helms Amendment and the funding of abortions for victims overseas who have been raped by ISIS, according to CNN.
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Though Clinton did not explicitly say she wants to get rid of the Helms Amendment, she did push for abortion funding for women across the world.
Clinton said that if the U.S. will not directly fund women’s abortions overseas, “then we have to help them in every other way and to get other people to at least provide the options.”
“I do think we have to take a look at this for conflict zones,” Clinton said. “And if the United States government, because of very strong feelings against it, maintains our prohibition, then we are going to have to work through non-profit groups and work with other counties to…provide the support and medical care that a lot of these women need.”
Clinton also assumed that the victims would want abortions, rather than support for themselves and their babies: “They will be total outcasts if they have the child of a terrorist or the child of a militia member. Their families won’t take them, their communities won’t take them.”
At another point in the meeting, Clinton said, “I am pro-choice and I am because I have over many years thought that it’s best to leave this very difficult decision to an individual woman, her faith, her family, her physician.”
Clinton seemed to signal that, if elected, she would work to weaken or eliminate the Helms Amendment – a move that abortion advocates have been pushing President Barack Obama to do. In December 2014, about two dozen groups called on Obama to take executive action clarifying that U.S. assistance can be used to fund abortion for women and girls who are victims of rape in war and conflict, LifeNews previously reported.
But Rebecca Kiessling, a pro-life attorney who was conceived in rape, told LifeNews that forcing Americans to pay for abortions would just victimize women in conflict areas a second time.
“Rape victim mothers need real help, not abortion,” Kiessling said. “Justice is served by punishing the perpetrator, not the innocent child. Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Mukwege of Panzi Hospital in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo has the right solution — providing care for rape victims, counseling, job training, and even child care for their children conceived in rape.”
The international pro-life group C-FAM agrees and it has said previously “international humanitarian law does not establish a right to abortion in cases of rape in conflict situations.” The group points out that abortions in unsanitary conflict situations would place the mother to increased health risks, and that abortion funding will divert greatly needed funds from other more pressing areas including basic medical care.
The group points out that giving a rape exception to the ban on abortion funding will further stigmatize and therefore harm children born of rape who are already vulnerable.
