Clinton blasts Republican "partisanship" on Planned Parenthood
Portland, Maine -- While some Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to pass legislation that would defund Planned Parenthood or shut the government down in the attempt, Hillary Clinton went to an organizing event here Friday, and dismissed the effort as "nothing but pure partisanship."
"It shows not only an indifference, an insensitivity, maybe an obliviousness to what Planned Parenthood does for millions of women, but it also sends a message to the world that we can't govern ourselves," she said to a crowd of 300 supporters, gathered in a middle school gymnasium.
Comments like these have become standard stump material for Clinton during the past two days as she has traveled across New Hampshire and ventured into Maine for the first time this cycle.
On Thursday, Clinton formally called on House Speaker John Boehner to support a funding resolution free of any measures that would defund Planned Parenthood, which received a little over $500 million federal dollars last year.
"Defunding a trusted health care provider that serves one in five women in America doesn't help anyone - in fact, it would hurt hundreds of thousands of people," Clinton said in a statement. Speaker Boehner and his colleagues have a job to do, and they should do it. Here's my message to them: don't attack women's health care. And don't shut down the government."
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Clinton has long applauded the work of Planned Parenthood, but her defense of the organization now, with its federal funding under fire, fits into her message on what kind of president Clinton says she wants to be: one that tackles the issues that "screech at us from the headlines" and "keep you up at night."
On one hand, the fight over Planned Parenthood represents the fight over women's access to healthcare for Clinton. In August, her campaign released a video in which Clinton promised to "never stop fighting to protect the ability and right of every woman in this country to make her own health decisions."
"When politicians talk about defunding Planned Parenthood, they're talking about blocking millions of women, men and young people from lifesaving preventive care," she says in the video. "Cancer screenings, breast exams, birth control."
And the threat of government shutdown over Planned Parenthood has given Clinton a segue to connect the fight to United States' status in the world. Later Thursday at a town hall in Concord, New Hampshire, Clinton recalled reading international news coverage of the government shutdown in 2013, which forced President Barack Obama to cancel a trip to Asia.
"We started to see nations led by the Chinese saying 'hey, we need to quote 'de-Americanize' the world," Clinton said. "I'll tell you where I stand. I don't want to see the world de-Americanized."
Clinton argued that "the alternative to American leadership" is "nobody's leadership," resulting in a dangerous vacuum of power.
Clinton's defense of Planned Parenthood comes during a month that finds her campaign's focus centered on women's issues. At the beginning of September, Clinton launched "Women for Hillary," an initiative to organize female voters, in New Hampshire. The campaign continued that effort on the night of the Republican debate by organizing more than 100 watch parties and phone banks around the country.
When Clinton was asked Friday about Carly Fiorina, who ripped into Planned Parenthood during the debate, Clinton would only say that "all of the candidates" on the debate stage were in favor of defunding the organization.
Clinton's new comments also coincide with recent polls which show Clinton's support among women slipping. A poll released Monday by the Washington Post and ABC News showed that 42 percent of Democratic-leaning female voters said they expect to vote for Clinton. That number is down 29 percentage points from July, when 71 percent said they planned to support her.
But there was no sign of dampened enthusiasm from crowd in Portland, which extended into an overflow room and gave Clinton a standing ovation when she promised to "defend a woman's right to choose" and to defend Planned Parenthood.
"The idea you would shut down the U.S. government? Over planned parenthood which does not use federal dollars to provide abortions?" she said. "We must stand up to it. We must make it clear we will not tolerate that kind of political posturing."