Jul 18, 2008 7:08 pm US/Eastern
SHE'S BACK: Hillary Rips Bush On Birth Control
Clinton Makes Loud Return To NYC, Rallies City Residents To Oppose President's Plans For Family Planning
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made her first public appearance in NYC following her failed presidential run and proceeded to bash President Bush's birth control proposals on July 18.
CBS
Hillary Clinton first appearance in New York City on Friday as a senator, not a presidential candidate, was to expose new Bush administration plans to limit access to family planning and contraception services.
New Yorkers applauded loudly for Clinton even as our junior senator came home to give a loud Bronx cheer to a move by President Bush to limit birth control and other services women need.
"This is a gratuitous, unnecessary insult to the women of the United States of America," Clinton said.
Clinton is trying to stop a move by the Bush administration to expand the definition of abortion to include many common forms of contraception, including birth control pills, the RU486 "Morning After" pill and other devices.
It's so draconian that, "Women would watch their contraceptive coverage disappear overnight," Clinton said.
It gets worse if the woman is a rape victim.
"Under these Bush rules an ideologically-driven hospital administrator or an emergency room supervisor or a doctor or 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," Clinton said.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey, D-Westchester, explained further the perceived ramifications of the Bush plan.
"Health care companies that want for whatever reason to drop coverage of birth control could do so under the rule, simply claiming the birth control is abortion," Lowey said.
Jo Ann Smith, CEO of Family Planning Advocates of New York, seriously questioned Bush plan.
"What kind of a world view would deny a woman a chance to use her own conscience to make her most basic health care decision?" Smith said.
Ann David, an OBGYN at the Family Planning Clinic in Washington Heights, said if anything the president's plan will cause more problems.
"If enacted, these rules could make birth control out of reach for some women and that is a sure way to guarantee more unintended pregnancies and more abortions," Dr. David said.
Clinton said she intends to do everything in her power to prevent the president from enacting this rule change.
However, she also said Democrats have to be on guard for more end runs around Congress by the president before he leaves office.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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