Clinton: Trump’s retreat from abortion comments unconvincing

by Jesse Byrnes - 03/31/16 9:45 PM ET

Hillary Clinton is signaling that she won’t be letting up anytime soon on Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s comments this week on abortion, calling his walk back “unconvincing.”

“It was outrageous that he would be advocating for women who exercise their constitutional right and have autonomy over their healthcare decisions would be criminals along with the doctors that served them,” Clinton told Business Insider on Thursday.

{mosads}”He did try to walk it back — I think pretty unconvincingly,” she added.

Trump sparked a political firestorm Wednesday when he suggested that women should be punished for getting abortions if the practice were made illegal.

“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said during the MSNBC town hall during a heated exchange with Chris Matthews.

Anti-abortion advocates have long sought to punish abortion providers if the practice were made illegal, not women who seek abortions, and several groups on both sides of the issue denounced Trump’s latest comments.

Trump quickly released a statement clarifying that “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman.”

“That’s the way I’ve always felt,” Trump insisted during a Fox News interview broadcast Thursday evening on “The O’Reilly Factor,” decrying the “long, convoluted question” on MSNBC.

“It could be that I misspoke,” Trump admitted of his remark, which is making its way into attack ads.

“He tried to walk it back, but I think you have to take him at his word,” Clinton told Business Insider. “And I think what we heard was a very unvarnished view that he has.”

Tags 2016 Democratic primary 2016 GOP primary 2016 presidential election Abortion abortion rights Donald Trump Hillary Clinton