Hillary’s ‘Hospitalgate’

Hillary Clinton has provided no substantiation of her claim to Congress that she’s visited hospitals in Brazil that allegedly were filled with women injured by botched illegal abortions.

Go here for the Daily Blog’s first post last week about the secretary of state’s questionable claim, made April 23 while appearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Department of State spokeswoman Laura Tischler said today to the Register, “I am unable to confirm where or when the trip she referred to in her testimony was — where specifically in Brazil she was visiting or when the trip occurred.”

Tischler referred the Register’s initial query last Monday about this issue to Clinton’s personal staff for a response. Clinton’s staff declined to provide any information to substantiate the claim, Tischler said.

The Daily Blog contacted Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who asked Clinton the April 23 abortion-related question in Congress that triggered her claim to have visited Brazilian hospitals where, she said, half the female patients “were fighting for their lives against botched abortions.” 

Here is Smith’s assessment of Clinton’s comment:

“This is part of a long-standing problem of abortion advocates making unverifiable and/or bogus statements about abortion data and then using the information to try and craft bad policy,” Smith said. “Pro-abortion activists have a long history of making these type of unsubstantiated claims. That’s how they drive policy — with gross exaggeration of numbers, hyperbole and junk science.”

Said Smith, “This reminds me of before abortion was legal, pre-Roe v. Wade. The abortion movement earned a terrible reputation for exaggerating maternal mortality while grossly understating the deleterious effects of legal abortion on women both physically and psychologically. I recall that Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist, said that pro-abortion advocates repeatedly told the media that 10,000 women were dying from illegal abortions in the U.S. every year. He later admitted this was all lies. Nathanson said the actual figure of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. Nathanson was quoted as saying: ‘Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public.’”

Added Smith, “Reducing maternal mortality and providing quality health care that ensures the well-being of both mother and baby here and abroad has been a top priority for me over the past three decades. Rather than the cruel ideology that positions mothers against their babies by offering abortion as the solution, we must provide women with real life-affirming solutions like safe blood and assisted childbirth.”