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Clinton Calls for ‘Quality, Affordable’ Abortion Care in Medical Journal

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pledged to "fight back against attempts to restrict access to quality, affordable reproductive health care, and defend access to affordable contraception, preventive care, and safe and legal abortion—not just in principle, but in practice.”

Clinton has long opposed Hyde and has repeatedly spoken out against it on the campaign trail. Speaking in in January during the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum, Clinton said the ban is “hard to justify because … certainly the full range of reproductive health rights that women should have includes access to safe and legal abortion.” Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton outlined her plans to address health care in the United States—including ensuring access to affordable abortion care and other reproductive health services—in an article published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

“We must ensure that women’s personal health decisions are made by a woman, her family, and her faith, with the counsel of her doctor,” Clinton wrote in the medical journal. “That’s why I will fight back against attempts to restrict access to quality, affordable reproductive health care, and defend access to affordable contraception, preventive care, and safe and legal abortion—not just in principle, but in practice.”

This pitch for affordable abortion care echoes a call from the Democratic Party’s 2016 platform to end the Hyde Amendment’s annual ban on most federal funding for abortion, a policy that disproportionately impacts people of color and those with low incomes.

Clinton has long opposed Hyde and has repeatedly spoken out against it on the campaign trail. Speaking in in January during the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum, Clinton said the ban is “hard to justify because … certainly the full range of reproductive health rights that women should have includes access to safe and legal abortion.”

Abortion care was already included as part of Clinton’s agenda on the “health care” page of the candidate’s website. 

The editors of NEJM had asked Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to write in and answer the question: “What specific changes in policy do you support to improve access to care, improve quality of care, and control health care costs for our nation?”

Trump did not respond to the request.

Clinton, in what could be an attempt to put distance between herself and Trump, explained that her health-care platform would improve on the gains made through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was opposed by every Republican in Congress.

“The ACA, which my opponent, Donald Trump, wants to repeal, doesn’t just expand coverage for millions of Americans who didn’t have it before,” Clinton wrote, noting that President Obama’s signature health-care law had offered “new benefits and protections” for millions across the country.

“My opponent and Republicans in Congress would strip away essential consumer protections and subject Americans to medical underwriting discrimination and even higher, more unpredictable premiums,” she continued. “They would also leave more than 20 million Americans without any insurance at all, shifting the cost of their care to insured Americans and health care providers.”

A recent analysis published by the Commonwealth Fund with the Rand Corporation found that Trump’s proposal to repeal and replace the health-care law “would increase the number of uninsured individuals by 16 million to 25 million relative to the ACA.” The analysis found that components of Clinton’s proposals on the health-care law could decrease the uninsured by as many as 9.6 million, while “decreasing average spending by up to 33 percent for those with moderately low incomes.”

Clinton’s article noted her commitment to ensuring access to mental health care and enforcing “insurance coverage parity requirements to ensure that mental health care is not siloed.” This promise comes roughly one month after the candidate introduced her agenda for tackling the issue.