Democratic Party takes major stand for reproductive freedom in party platform ahead of SCOTUS ruling

The Democratic Party's platform committee has passed a more progressive platform position on reproductive freedom than in previous election years.

"The Democratic Party platform explicitly calls for repealing the Hyde Amendment, which restricts access to women’s reproductive rights, particularly low-income women and women of color," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign said in a statement.

According to the Democratic Party's convention page, the Hyde Amendment isn't the only bold move they made on women's reproductive freedom. The party's platform also champions Planned Parenthood health centers and agrees that Democrats will commit to pushing back on all Republican efforts to defund it.

The party vows to "oppose and seek to overturn, all federal and state laws that impede a woman’s access to abortion." This would include the restrictive Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule on this week. Texas was also caught holding back numbers that might verify that the law has created an undue hardship on women seeking care. Something the party fervently opposes.

While the platform aims to encourage women's rights domestically it also pledges to advocate for women's health and freedom abroad. The Democratic Party "strongly supports the repeal of harmful restrictions that obstruct women’s access to healthcare around the world, including the Global Gag Rule and the Helms Amendment, which bars US assistance to other countries that provide safe, legal, abortion," it outlines. The Global Gag Rule is not a restriction on abortion itself, but rather denies funding to programs where doctors give women information about abortion, effectively advocating against honest conversations women can have with their doctors.

The 2004 Democratic party platform, by contrast, outlined that “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.”

“Make no mistake about it: The 2016 Democratic platform represents an ambitious, progressive agenda that all Democrats can and should be proud of," the Clinton campaign responded to the platform announcements.

Clinton was endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund earlier in June.