From the very first moments of the final presidential debate, the choice on life could not have been clearer. Hillary Clinton budged not an inch — not a single baby — from her extreme stance on abortion, and Donald Trump stood firm on his pro-life commitments. The contrast was dramatic.
For the first time, thanks to the persistence of moderator Chris Wallace (whose father Mike, years ago, memorably interviewed an aging and bitter Margaret Sanger), Hillary Clinton was pressed on her position that there is not one circumstance in which she would protect the human right to life of an unborn child — even a child moments from birth. In fact, Clinton went so far as to defend her support for the barbaric and now nationally banned partial birth abortion procedure. Trump responded by drawing the logical conclusion from Clinton’s assertion that the child, as Wallace accurately put it, “has no constitutional rights.” “If you go with what Hillary is saying,” Trump remarked, “in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”
In her attempt to pivot from the extremity of her stance, Clinton claimed that most late-term abortions are “heartbreaking, painful” decisions, where “something terrible has happened.” It says something about the near-universal horror of late-term abortion that its defenders feel they must make such a claim. But the claim is false. As a 2015 review by Dr. Elizabeth Ann M. Johnson for the Charlotte Lozier Institute confirmed, pro-choice researchers acknowledge that the reasons women cite for late-term abortion are the same as those for first-term procedures, except for maternal age and employment status.
How many babies a year are we talking about? Abortion reporting from states with the most permissive abortion laws, such as California and Maryland, is non-existent. But it could be as many as 18,000 children a year. Clinton told the nation last night that we should be rightly alarmed about “dozens of toddlers” who injure or kill themselves through firearms accidents. Why should we be unconcerned about thousands of soon-to-be toddlers killed on the threshold of birth?
In addition, a woman who has an abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy is 35 times more likely to die from the procedure than she was in the first trimester. After 21 weeks, a woman is 91 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. So late-term abortion takes the life of a child and also puts women at seriously elevated risk.
Clinton, moreover, left out of her ringing defense of abortion the Democratic Party’s newest agenda item: the repeal of the longstanding, bipartisan Hyde Amendment, which has for over 40 years protected taxpayers from funding elective abortions under Medicaid. A new study of that amendment demonstrates conclusively that it has saved over 2 million lives (60,000 annually) since its enactment. This means that one in every nine births to women on Medicaid is a child who owes her or his life to the Hyde Amendment — one in every 150 of our fellow Americans.
Clinton reflexively repeated her support for funneling billions in tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, the abortion industry’s corporate giant, who just last year was caught selling baby body parts for profit. Moments earlier, eschewing all reference to the duty of judges to interpret the Constitution and not substitute for its clauses their elite policy preferences, Clinton claimed her goal in naming judges was to protect the “middle-class” from corporate interests. Unless that corporate CEO is the millionaire head of Planned Parenthood and the Hyde Amendment stands in their way.
Despite all the smoke and mirrors, make no mistake, under a Clinton presidency America will see an expansion and promotion of abortion, domestically and worldwide, like never before.
Trump, on the other hand, continues to defend the voiceless. On late-term abortion he stands with most Americans in opposing this dangerous and painful procedure. Polling from Quinnipiac, National Journal, Huffington Post, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post/ABC News all show that Americans — especially women — oppose this gruesome practice and want it to end. Trump also stands with the rest of the world in opposing late-term abortions. The U.S. is one of only seven countries on the planet to allow these elective procedures to continue. The others are China, North Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, the Netherlands and Canada. Can this be what anyone means by a “good America”?
After the final debate, America has its choice on a fundamental issue: a candidate who has made firm pro-life commitments and a candidate who embraces abortion in an extreme way on a global scale. It’s up to Americans to choose wisely now and to be a voice for the voiceless come November 8.
Marjorie Dannenfelser is the president of Susan B. Anthony List, a national pro-life advocacy group. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
