6/13/16
The Highlights from Hillary’s Powerful Planned Parenthood Speech

In her first speech after securing the Democratic Party nomination, Hillary Clinton gave a powerful speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in DC, slamming Donald Drumpf and reassuring voters that defending women’s rights will be a big part of not only her campaign, but her presidency. Here are the highlights from the half hour speech:

Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, on women’s current place in the country in her intro to Hillary Clinton:

Largely because women can now access birth control and legal abortion , we are now half of the college students, we are half of the law and medical students, there are three awesome women on the Supreme Court of the United States, there are 20 women in the United States Senate, and when the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and all of us do our work right, over the next five months we will proudly be part of electing the first woman president of the United States of America.

Richards on voting for a woman:

This isn’t about electing any woman to the White House, this is about electing this woman, Hillary Clinton.

Clinton on women being punished for abortions:

[This victory] belongs to the staff, the donors, and to the providers. Providers like Dr. Amna Dermish in Texas, who called out Donald Drumpf when he said women should be punished for having abortions. And the open letter she wrote defending her patients’ right to make their own health decisions should be required reading for every politician in America.

Her on bravery in the face of violence:

When a man who never should have had a gun killed three people at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, leaders in this room voted unanimously to keep health centers across America open the next day.

The CEO, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains made a promise to patients in Colorado and beyond when she said: “Our doors – and our hearts – stay open.”

That is really what Planned Parenthood is all about.

On her dedication to PP:

I’ve been proud to stand with Planned Parenthood for a long time. And as president, I will always have your back.

On reproductive history:

Just think when Planned Parenthood was founded, women couldn’t vote or serve on juries in most states. It was illegal even to provide information about birth control, let alone prescribe it.

On the legalization of birth control:

51 years ago this week, thanks to a Planned Parenthood employee named Estelle Griswold, the Supreme Court legalized birth control for married couples across America.

On the positive effects of Roe v. Wade:

And not long after that, Roe v. Wade guaranteed the right to safe, legal abortion.

So young women were no longer dying in emergency rooms and back alleys from botched, illegal abortions. And this is a fact that is not often heard, but I hope you will repeat it: America’s maternal mortality rate dropped dramatically.

On women in the economy:

The movement of women into the workforce, the paid workforce, over the past 40 years was responsible for more than three and a half trillion dollars in growth in our economy.

On rates of unplanned pregnancy, teen pregnancy and abortion:

And here’s another fact that doesn’t get much attention: unintended pregnancy, teen pregnancy, and abortion rates are at all time record lows. That reality and studies confirm what Planned Parenthood knew all along: Accurate sex education and effective, affordable contraception work.

On the restrictive Texas law before the Supremes:

Any day now, the Supreme Court will rule on the Texas law that imposes burdensome and medically unnecessary requirements on abortion providers. If these restrictions are allowed to stand, 5.4 million women of reproductive age will be left with about 10 health centers that provide abortion – in a state the size of France. It is the biggest challenge to Roe v. Wade in a generation.

On conservative attacks against women’s rights:

Now, meanwhile, in just the first three months of 2016, states across the country introduced more than 400 restrictions on abortion. 11 states have defunded Planned Parenthood in the last year, cutting some women off from their only health care provider. And of course, on a national level, Republicans in Congress have been willing to shut down the entire federal government over Planned Parenthood funding.

Have you ever noticed that the same politicians who are against sex education, birth control, and safe and legal abortion, are also against policies that would make it easier to raise a child – like paid family leave?

They are for limited government everywhere except when it comes to interfering with women’s choices and rights.

Why abortion needs to be defended:

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.

Donald on women:

[Donald Drumpf] actually thinks guaranteeing paid family leave would leave America less competitive. He says if women want equal pay, we should just – and this is a quote – “do as good a job” as men – as if we weren’t already.

He wants to appoint justices who want to overturn Roe V. Wade. He of course wants to defund Planned Parenthood. And he wants to go after so many of the fundamental rights we have, including safe and legal abortions. And he actually said, “women should be punished for having abortions.” Now, once he said that there was an outcry, as there should have been, and he tried to walk back his comments. He’s doing that a lot lately.

But anyone who would so casually agree to the idea of punishing women – like it was nothing to him, the most obvious thing in the world – that is someone who doesn’t hold women in high regard. Because if he did, he’d trust women to make the right decisions for ourselves.

. . . When he says pregnant women are an “inconvenience” to their employer, what does that say about how he values women – our work, our contributions?

On women’s rights globally:

But I also come to it as a former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State. And in those roles, in those roles, I traveled to parts of the world where girls are married off as soon as they are old enough to bear children. Places where the denial of family planning consigns women to lives of hardship.

I visited countries where governments have strictly regulated women’s reproduction – either forcing women to have abortions or forcing women to get pregnant and give birth.

Everything I have seen has convinced me that life is freer, fairer, healthier, safer, and far more humane when women are empowered to make their own reproductive health decisions.

And everything I’ve heard from Donald Drumpf, often seems to echo other leaders who have a very different view of women.