Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton late Sunday launched a multi-pronged assault on Republicans following the shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., calling for more stringent gun control and heightened protections for abortion rights.
{mosads}“The shooting on Friday was at, as you know, a Planned Parenthood clinic, a place where lots of women get healthcare they need — breast exams, STD testing, contraception and, yes, safe and legal abortions,” Clinton said at the New Hampshire Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. “We should be supporting Planned Parenthood, not attacking it.”
In an appeal for more stringent gun control, Clinton drew a connection between the Colorado shooting, which left three dead, and the terrorist attack on Paris earlier this month.
“This is truly unbelievable, that after what we’ve seen in Paris and other places, Republicans will not bring up a bill that will prohibit anyone on the no-fly list from buying a gun in America,” she said. “If you are too dangerous to fly in America, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America.
“How many more Americans need to die before we take action?” she asked.
The former first lady urged Republicans not to make abortion rights a partisan issue.
“And it is way past time to protect women’s health and respect women’s rights, not use them as political footballs,” she said.
Anticipating accusations of playing the “gender card,” Clinton told Republicans to deal her in.
“I know when I talk like this, some people, especially of the Republican persuasion, say I’m playing the gender card. Well, if talking about women’s health, equal pay, paid family leave, and affordable child care is playing the gender card, deal me in,” she said.
Repeating the phrase “ladder of opportunity,” Clinton also showed off the newest plank of her economic policy platform, which includes spending plans to revitalize America’s infrastructure.
“Today in Boston, I laid out a plan to help put Americans to work, repairing our roads and bridges and tunnels, and all of the airports and the ports and the rail systems, building that economy for the future,” she said.
The plan is the most costly Clinton has proposed during her presidential bid, exceeding the $350 billion she has set aside to make college more affordable.