Hillary Clinton has been caught lying about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh – making the false oft-repeated claim that he called birth control “abortion-inducing drugs.” Nevermind that a media-factchecking web site and the Washington Post have already called out abortion activist Kamala Harris for making the same false statement.
During his confirmation hearing, Judge Kavanaugh talked about his ruling upholding the right of pro-life groups to not be forced to pay for abortion drugs, which he called “abortion-inducing drugs.” The pro-abortion movement has always falsely claimed that that allows pro-life and Christian businesses to deny birth control, even though they don’t object to non-abortifacient birth control so it falsely claimed Kavanaugh wrongly labeled birth control as abortion drugs.
But even the mainmstream media has rebuked abortion activists for making the false claim.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was given a “false” rating by Politifact Monday for her deceptively edited video in a tweet claiming that Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh had called birth control “abortion-inducing drugs.” And the Washington Post gave Harris “four Pinocchios” (its biggest “whopper” rating) and urged pro-abortion Democrats to “drop this talking point.”
That hasn’t stopped Hillary Clinton from picking up the lie and running with it.
I want to be sure we’re all clear about something that Brett Kavanaugh said in his confirmation hearings last week. He referred to birth-control pills as “abortion-inducing drugs.” That set off a lot of alarm bells for me, and it should for you, too.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 12, 2018
Like Harris, Clinton implied that the Supreme Court nominee believes all birth control causes abortions, but Kavanaugh did not say that was his personal belief or that all birth control causes abortions. What he did was answer a question about the Priests for Life case, the details of the pro-life group’s arguments and his ruling.
“That was a group that was being forced to provide a certain kind of health coverage over their religious objection to their employees, and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the question was first, was this a substantial burden on the religious exercise? And it seemed to me quite clearly it was,” Kavanaugh said during the hearing last week. “It was a technical matter of filling out a form, in that case with — that — they said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were — as a religious matter, objected to.”
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But the Washington Post, Politifact and others disagreed. The fact-checker pointed out that Harris’s tweet “takes Kavanaugh’s statement out of context.”
According to the Washington Examiner:
The Washington Post fact-checker said Kavanaugh referring to “they said,” demonstrates “he is merely reflecting the plaintiffs’ argument.”
The newspaper also cited Kavanaugh’s dissent in the case, in which he wrote, “They complain that submitting the required form contravenes their religious beliefs because doing so, in their view, makes them complicit in providing coverage for contraceptives, including some that they believe operate as abortifacients.”
Despite the facts being against her, Harris has stubbornly refused to correct her “whopper” of a lie.
Harris’s spokeswoman Lily Adams, who also happens to be former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards’ daughter, defended her boss to Politifact.
“In his full answer, he uses the term uncritically,” Adams said. “He doesn’t say ‘so-called,’ ‘I don’t agree with it,’ there’s no caveat that he gives that he does not agree with the term.”
But Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, explained that Kavanaugh was simply summarizing the position of the religious group, Priests for Life, which held that belief.
“It’s very clear he’s characterizing their position, which was held by all the Catholic organizations within that set of cases,” Kupec said. “But even within characterizing their position, if you look at the dissent, it’s still not a blanket description of birth control.”
Harris has not removed her deceptive comments from social media.
Abortion activists fear Kavanaugh, who has served on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. for more than a decade. He has an extensive record of protecting religious liberty, including in the Priests for Life case, and enforcing restrictions on abortion. Pro-life leaders believe he would do the same on the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on his confirmation at the beginning of October.
