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CLINTON, Iowa, November 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that U.S. taxpayers should be on the hook for abortions for refugees impregnated through rape.

“I do think we have to take a look at this for conflict zones,” Clinton said at an Iowa town hall, according to CNN. “And if the United States government, because of very strong feelings against it, maintains our prohibition, then we are going to have to work through non-profit groups and work with other counties to … provide the support and medical care that a lot of these women need.”

Clinton also said that “systematic use of rape as a tool of war and subjection is one that has been around from the beginning of history” but that it has become “even more used by a lot of the most vicious militias and insurgent groups and terrorist groups.”

The prohibition referenced by Clinton – and named by the woman who asked Clinton about pregnant refugees – is known as the Helms Amendment. Made into law in 1973, it prevents U.S. foreign aid funds from being used for abortion.

Abortion supporters have urged the Obama administration to unilaterally change its interpretation of the amendment to allow exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape and incest, and if the mother's life is in danger. They argue that because the law specifically states that “[n]o foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning,” women who are raped should be excepted.

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In August, 81 Democrats signed a letter to President Obama that urged this course of action. CNN reported that while Clinton didn't call for the Helms Amendment to be changed or re-interpreted, she did support other actions to increase women's access to abortion facilities.

If the United States “can't help them [to get an abortion], then we have to help them in every other way and to get other people to at least provide the options” to women raped in conflict, she said.

“They will be total outcasts if they have the child of a terrorist or the child of a militia member,” according to Clinton. “Their families won't take them, their communities won't take them.”

A study of women who bore their rape-conceived children during the Rwanda genocide found that “motherhood played a positive role for many women, often providing a reason to live again after the genocide.”