Hillary Clinton's website has a large graphic of the Supreme Court on the top of her front page, with the following headline and text:
Our Right to Choose
The Supreme Court's decision to restrict abortion procedures with no regard for a women's health is a fundamental attack on a woman's right to choose and a dramatic departure from decades of rulings that put our rights and our health first.
Clicking on the statement leads to the following longer announcement on blogHillary.
Hillary made the following statement:
"This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health. Today's decision blatantly defies the Court's recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother. As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account. It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito."
John Edwards's website has a brief link under the category of news headlines on the bottom of his front page, which links to this announcement:
Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Senator John Edwards released the following statement about today's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling upholding the federal abortion ban.
"I could not disagree more strongly with today's Supreme Court decision. The ban upheld by the Court is an ill-considered and sweeping prohibition that does not even take account for serious threats to the health of individual women. This hard right turn is a stark reminder of why Democrats cannot afford to lose the 2008 election. Too much is at stake - starting with, as the Court made all too clear today, a woman's right to choose."
Barack Obama's website has no announcement or explicit link on the front page, but does have a link to "Women for Obama" which includes this statement:
Chicago, IL - Senator Barack Obama today made the following statement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding abortion.
"I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women. As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman’s medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient. I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman's right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women."
In summary, all three had similar strong positions, but only Hillary chose to highlight it as a major statement on the top front page of her site.
I think that this recent decision will strengthen Hillary's support as both Democrats and moderate Republican women will tend to trust her leadership on this issue (even if she frames it in centrist terminology, such as agreeing with the need to reduce the number of abortions). Her placing this front and center on her Website is an indication of the centrality of this issue to her campaign.
What do you think?
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