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Hillary Clinton delivered her first speech as the presumptive Democratic nominee not in a major electoral battleground but before hundreds of reproductive rights advocates, warning that Donald Trump would return America to a time “when life for too many women and girls was limited”.

Hillary Clinton holds hands with Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Days after becoming the first woman in US history to lead a major-party presidential ticket, Clinton drew upon a series of bellicose remarks made by Trump in reference to women - from calling them “pigs” and “disgusting animals” to suggesting they should be punished for having abortions - as part of a blistering indictment of her Republican opponent before the Planned Parenthood Action Network in Washington DC.

“Anyone who would so casually agree to the idea of punishing women - like it was nothing to him, the most obvious thing in the world - that is someone who doesn’t hold women in high regard,” Clinton said. “Because if he did, he’d trust women to make the right decisions for ourselves.”

“We’re in the middle of a concerted, persistent assault on women’s health across our country. And we have to ask ourselves and ask everyone we come in contact with: Do we want to put our health, our lives, our futures in Donald Trump’s hands?”