--- title: Marjorie Dannenfelser on Donald Trump's Abortion Policy description: Polls show more Americans agree with Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton on abortion policy canonical: https://time.com/4543097/donald-trump-abortion-policy/ author: Marjorie Dannenfelser article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-24T19:57:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T01:23:09.456Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Marjorie Dannenfelser on Donald Trump's Abortion Policy og:description: Polls show more Americans agree with Trump than Clinton on abortion policy og:url: https://time.com/4543097/donald-trump-abortion-policy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt98458c29b2dbdc35/6988ab55fb4eac1bba88f99f/debate6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: Hillary Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, speaks as Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential nominee, gestures during the third U.S. presidential debate in Las Vegas on Oct. 19, 2016. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Marjorie Dannenfelser on Donald Trump's Abortion Policy twitter:description: Polls show more Americans agree with Trump than Clinton on abortion policy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt98458c29b2dbdc35/6988ab55fb4eac1bba88f99f/debate6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Marjorie Dannenfelser: Donald Trump's Abortion Stance Preserves the Sanctity of Life > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Marjorie Dannenfelser](https://time.com/author/marjorie-dannenfelser/) ## Marjorie Dannenfelser Oct 24, 2016 7:57 PM UTC  Hillary Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, speaks as Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential nominee, gestures during the third U.S. presidential debate in Las Vegas on Oct. 19, 2016. Hillary Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, speaks as Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential nominee, gestures during the third U.S. presidential debate in Las Vegas on Oct. 19, 2016. Bloomberg via Getty Images by [Marjorie Dannenfelser](https://time.com/author/marjorie-dannenfelser/) ## Marjorie Dannenfelser Oct 24, 2016 7:57 PM UTC The [third presidential debate](http://time.com/4535247/presidential-debate-final-transcript/) between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton exposed the deep chasm that exists between them on the issue of abortion. Secretary Clinton made clear her strong support for _Roe v. Wade._ She defended her [vote](http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary%5FClinton%5FAbortion.htm) in the Senate against a ban on partial-birth abortion (which passed by a [vote of 64-33](http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/13/senate.abortion/)). She praised Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider and pledged to continue its federal funding. And she spoke out against state-level efforts to regulate abortion, which include higher health and safety standards of facilities that perform abortions and limits on abortions performed on the disabled and for purposes of sex selection. The only part of her radical abortion agenda she forgot to mention was that she supports [repealing the Hyde Amendment](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/abortion-tim-kaine-hillary-clinton/493913/), which for four decades has prevented federal taxpayer funding of abortion. Trump had this to say about Clinton’s platform: “Well, I think it’s terrible. If you go with what Hillary is saying, 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. Now, you can say that that’s OK and Hillary can say that that’s OK. But it’s not OK with me.” It’s not OK with the majority of Americans, either. National polling by [Quinnipiac](http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1931), [National Journal](http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressional-connection/coverage/americans-narrowly-support-20-week-abortion-ban-20130626), [Huffington Post](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/abortion-poll%5Fn%5F3575551.html), [NBC/Wall Street Journal](http://firstread.nbcnews.com/%5Fnews/2013/07/24/19661159-poll-plurality-support-abortion-restrictions-after-20-weeks?lite) and [Washington Post/ABC News](http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/07/25/National-Politics/Polling/question%5F11465.xml?uuid=bN9EXvUZEeKB-o6Ds4ZMNg) all found that a plurality or majority of Americans support limiting abortion after five months and that women support the measure in higher proportions than men. The flurry of denunciations and deflections offered by Clinton’s supporters after the debate shows that they know they are on the wrong side of the American people. Some [claimed](http://www.npr.org/2016/10/20/498667418/fact-checking-trumps-position-on-partial-birth-abortion) that late-term abortion is a non-issue because only 1.5% of abortions reported annually occur after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Bearing in mind abortion reporting in the U.S. has many problems, given that [more than one million abortions](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states) are performed in the U.S. each year, that comes out to more than 15,000 abortions. Another claim made by Clinton and her defenders is that late-term abortion only occurs in cases when a life-threatening fetal abnormality is discovered late in pregnancy. But [research published](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1363/4521013/abstract) by [_Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health_](https://www.guttmacher.org/about/journals/psrh), a journal of the Guttmacher Institute, [finds that](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1363/4521013/full) “data suggests that most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment,” but rather for the same elective reasons that lead to abortion earlier in a pregnancy. Testimony from doctors who perform late-term abortions also supports this conclusion. Leroy Carhart, who does late-term abortions in Germantown, M.D. [told](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIlYXmG287g) one woman seeking an abortion at 26-weeks that he had seen four other 26-week or similar cases in the same week. Perhaps the most absurd point offered post-debate by those who seek to deflect attention from Clinton’s extreme position was that Trump’s description of a late-term abortion as “ripping a baby out of the womb” was not abortion at all, but merely a ceasarean [section](http://www.liberalamerica.org/2016/10/19/ripping-baby-womb-9-months-called-c-section-donald-tweets-video/), a common method of childbirth. Um, no. There’s a crucial difference between a c-section and a late-term abortion: only one is meant to result in a child being born. Those seeking to brush off Trump’s description like this are willfully ignoring the reality of our nation’s permissive abortion laws. Remember Clinton herself [acknowledged](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZGZZcSn6rA) to the women of The View that even on his or her due date, an unborn child in America has no legal protection. The denials and obfuscations can’t hide the fact that Clinton is one of the most radical pro-abortion candidates to ever to seek the presidency. In contrast, Trump has made clear his commitment to overturn _Roe v. Wade_, sign a ban on late-term abortion, defund Planned Parenthood and uphold the Hyde Amendment. Trump’s strong and compassionate defense of the unborn in last week’s debate forced Clinton to drop her mask. The choice for those who want to uphold the sanctity of human life and the Constitution’s guarantee of the right to life to all citizens could not be clearer. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4543097/donald-trump-abortion-policy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4543097/donald-trump-abortion-policy/"},"headline":"Marjorie Dannenfelser: Donald Trump's Abortion Stance Preserves the Sanctity of Life","datePublished":"2016-10-24T19:57:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T01:23:09.456Z","description":"Polls show more Americans agree with Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton on abortion policy","url":"https://time.com/4543097/donald-trump-abortion-policy/","keywords":["politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt98458c29b2dbdc35/6988ab55fb4eac1bba88f99f/debate6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Marjorie Dannenfelser","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/marjorie-dannenfelser/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt98458c29b2dbdc35/6988ab55fb4eac1bba88f99f/debate6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hillary Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, speaks as Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential nominee, gestures during the third U.S. presidential debate in Las Vegas on Oct. 19, 2016.","caption":"Hillary Clinton, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, speaks as Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential nominee, gestures during the third U.S. presidential debate in Las Vegas on Oct. 19, 2016.","creditText":"Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4543097/donald-trump-abortion-policy/","name":"Marjorie Dannenfelser: Donald Trump's Abortion Stance Preserves the Sanctity of Life"}}]}] ```