Former Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York was out campaigning again last week, but this time it was not for the presidency of the United States.
It was for an amendment proposed to the California state constitution that would create a "right" to abortion.
Clinton moderated a forum at a Planned Parenthood facility in San Francisco last Thursday to promote this proposed amendment.
Back in June, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to the states. The California state legislature then voted by greater-than-two-thirds majorities in both of its houses to place a constitutional amendment on the state's November ballot.
Proposition 1, as it is called, states the following: "The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual's reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives. This section is intended to further the constitutional right to privacy guaranteed by Section 1, and the constitutional right to not be denied equal protection guaranteed by Section 7. Nothing herein narrows or limits the right to privacy or equal protection."
Nor does anything in the language of this proposed constitutional amendment limit abortion itself. It does not include, for example, an age limit on when an unborn child can be terminated. It states instead, as noted, that the "state shall not deny or interfere with an individual's reproductive freedom ... which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion."
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So, if a woman is nine months pregnant and begins to go into labor, does this proposed constitutional amendment guarantee her a "right" to abort that about-to-be-born baby? Would a future state law that prohibited abortion after eight months of pregnancy violate this proposed amendment because it would "deny or interfere" with the alleged "fundamental right to choose to have an abortion"?
Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, who has spoken out against this amendment, has correctly explained that it would create a state constitutional "right" to unrestricted abortion.
"Voters this November will be asked whether they support the 'right' to abortion for all nine months without any restrictions or limitations," Cordileone said in a video message he posted on his archdiocesan website.
"Sadly, California already has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the nation, with abortion allowed without any limits within the first six months of pregnancy," said the archbishop. "After six months, abortion is allowed for reasons associated with the life or health of the mother, including mental health.
"What Prop 1 proposes," explained the archbishop, "is to go beyond Roe v. Wade and beyond existing California law and allow abortion at any point in a pregnancy for any reason whatsoever."
This is what Clinton traveled to the archbishop's city to promote.
The San Francisco Chronicle published a story that carried this headline: "Abortion measure brings Clinton to S.F."
"Clinton moderated an hour-long panel discussion at the San Francisco Planned Parenthood office," the Chronicle reported.
"'You have to understand that these are highly motivated, relentless advocates for their point of view as to how all the rest of us in this country should conduct our lives,' Clinton said, referring to conservatives as 'the forces of darkness,'" the Chronicle reported.
"Speaking to a room of about 100 hot-pink-clad supporters, legislators and members of the media," reported the San Jose Mercury News, "Clinton told cautionary tales of repressive reproductive laws she witnessed in other countries during her time as U.S. secretary of state."
"How many women have to die or be terribly mistreated in order to change these laws that are so Draconian?" Clinton said.
"I see (Prop 1) as a critically important piece of the larger struggle that we are engaged in," Clinton said, according to the San Francisco Examiner. "And that's why California has to be constantly standing up for our foundational values and freedoms and rights."
The Chronicle reported: "Clinton said the fight for Prop. 1 was part of an effort to counter 'a much broader agenda to turn the clock back on the values, the rights and freedoms that this country has been struggling to achieve in concert with our founding values.'"
Here is Clinton's ultimate claim: This alleged "right" to take the life of an unborn child is "in concert with our founding values."
Yet those values were expressed in plain English in the Declaration of Independence. It states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Our Creator gave us all a right to life, not a right to take innocent lives. Proposition 1, which Clinton traveled to California to support, would do exactly that -- take innocent lives.
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