Hillary Clinton was rebuked by a Catholic Bishop from Texas for comparing the overturning of Roe v. Wade with rape being used as a “tactic of war” in such places as Iran, Afghanistan and Ukraine.
“We have come along way on so many fronts,” she said in an interview with CNN. “But we are also in a period of time where there is a lot of pushback, and much of the progress that has been taken for granted by too many people is under attack: literally under attack in places like Iran or Afghanistan or Ukraine, where rape is a tactic of war, or under attack by political and cultural forces in a country like our own when it comes to women’s health care and bodily autonomy.”
News outlets further quoted her as saying, “It’s so shocking to think that in any way we’re related to poor Afghanistan and Sudan. But as an advanced economy as we allegedly are, on this measure, we, unfortunately, are rightly put with them. … This struggle is between autocracy and democracy from our country to places we can’t even believe we’re being compared to.”
In response to Clinton seemingly comparing pro-lifers to those who commit evil atrocities against women in war zones, Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, tweeted, “Please, please don’t listen to this evil woman. Her lies and immorality need to be silenced for the good of humanity.”
Clinton’s comments and Strickland’s response came months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 decision that gave nationwide legal cover to abortion. In his final opinion issued on the matter, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Roe and the 1992 decision on Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed the right to abortion access, were problematic from the day they were decided.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he wrote in June. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined Alito.
–Dwight Widaman | MV