Clinton Champions Abortion Rights At The Debate

During Thursday night's Democratic debate, both Hillary Clinton's and Bernie Sanders' campaigns tweeted about the lack of questions on an important women's issue, and, finally, Clinton brought up abortion on stage — since no one else would. She had to sneak it into a discussion about President Obama's Supreme Court nomination and the implications the potential new justice would have on the nation, bringing up the fact that many conservatives want to overturn Roe v. Wade. Clinton didn't want to let nine whole debates fly by without a single minute spent on one of the most controversial women's rights issues throughout the country.

"Since we're talking about the Supreme Court and what's at stake... we've had eight debates before — this is our ninth — we've not had one question about a woman's right to make her own decisions about reproductive health care," she said Thursday. "Not one question!" Abortion came up multiple times in GOP debates, with Republican candidates taking the extreme stance of wanting to ban abortion completely and defund Planned Parenthood, which is precisely why the Democrats needed to discuss the topic too. Democrats want to know what Clinton or Sanders would do as president to stop the systematic attack on women's reproductive rights in Congress, state legislatures, and courts.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards praised the former secretary of state for mentioning abortion herself, tweeting during the debate: "They didn't #AskAboutAbortion - so our champion @HillaryClinton brought it up herself." In fact, doing so proved why reproductive rights organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL endorsed Clinton over Sanders — he's an ally, but she's a champion for women's rights. She's not going to wait around for action to be taken on abortion, she wants to make sure it happens — and soon.

After Clinton's comments, Sanders explained that he's always voted for pro-choice legislation, but he wasn't the one to actively make abortion a topic of discussion. With access to abortion disappearing for millions of women across the country, the issue has to be brought up — it's not always enough to support something while doing nothing to ensure that it's a reality. Of course, being a pro-choice ally is great and very much needed in the Senate, but the president needs to do more when women's autonomy and health is at stake.

Clinton's brilliant transition proved exactly why she has the reproductive rights vote. She's willing to have tough conversations about women's rights and won't let America ignore them.