More like this please. Yesterday Hillary Clinton spoke at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America conference. She held back nothing, calling for increased access to reproductive medicine, guaranteed uninhibited safety at Planned Parenthood clinics, family leave, and even a reversal of the Hyde Amendment to allow federal funding of abortion:
Let's repeal laws like the Hyde Amendment that make it nearly impossible, make it nearly impossible for low-income women, disproportionately women of color, to exercise their full reproductive rights.
And, it is worth saying again: defending women's health means defending access to abortion – not just in theory, but in reality. We know that restricting access doesn't make women less likely to end a pregnancy. It just makes abortion less safe. And that then threatens women's lives.
For too long, issues like these have been dismissed by many as 'women's issues' – as though that somehow makes them less worthy, secondary.
Well, yes, these are women's issues. They're also family issues. They're economic issues. They're justice issues. They're fundamental to our country and our future.
She also took on Donald Trump specifically on the issue of women's rights:
...Donald assures us that, as President, he'll be – and I quote again – 'the best for women.'
Anyone who wants to defund Planned Parenthood, and wipe out safe, legal abortion has no idea what's best for women.
And after all this is a man who has called women 'pigs,' 'dogs,' and 'disgusting animals.' Kind of hard to imagine counting on him to respect our fundamental rights?
When he says pregnant women are an 'inconvenience' to their employer, what does that say about how he values women – our work, our contributions?
We're in the middle of a concerted, persistent assault on women's health across our country. And we have to ask ourselves and ask everyone we come in contact with: Do we want to put our health, our lives, our futures in Donald Trump's hands?
Now, these questions aren't hypothetical. Every woman – and everyone who cares about women – will answer them when they vote in November.
When I talk like this, Donald Trump likes to say I'm playing the 'woman card.' And I like to say, if fighting for equal pay, Planned Parenthood, and the ability to make our own health decisions is playing the woman card, then deal me in.
Here's the full speech, including Cecile Richards' introduction, below. Shakesville has the transcript and Melissa McEwan's Storify of the speech is also worth reading.
#She'sWithUs.