HHS’s Burwell: ‘Women’s Health Disparities’ Bigger Issue than Abortion
RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
MITCHELL: “Now, in this political season, you also have the candidates. Let me show you a little bit off of ‘Meet the Press’ where Ben Carson, a doctor, a neurologist, pediatric neurologist who does not get involved with care for women's reproductive systems, but this was his response to Chuck Todd on roe V wade.”
[clip starts]
CARSON: “Ultimately I would love to see it overturned.”
TODD: “That means all abortions illegal or is there still an exception you would have?”
CARSON: “I'm a reasonable person. And if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I'll listen.”
[clip ends]
MITCHELL: “So he says that life begins with conception, no exceptions for the life of the mother unless someone can persuade him and no exceptions for rape and incest.”
BURWELL: “You know, the law of the land, this is an emotional issue, an important issue to many people, but the law of the land is that this can occur and can occur in safe ways. And I think that's an important thing to preserve this as a choice between a woman and her own physicians as she makes those choices herself.”
MITCHELL: “Many people thought it was settled law. We are going back to the early 1970s.”
BURWELL: “That's correct.”
MITCHELL: “Is it surprising to you that this is still being debated as hotly in the 2016 presidential race?
BURWELL: “You know, what I would love to see is us focus on the issues of women's health disparities and the issues that are in front of us today. So many people don't know that the number one killer for women is heart disease. That's something we can do so many things about. So what I would love to see the time and attention focused on is issues like that, where we know we can work on either through getting women coverage or getting them the knowledge of how they can do things, whether that's the ABCs, aspirin, blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking cessation, those are the kinds of things where I think we action can work on our health together.”
