Abortion lobby lost big this election — life is a winning issue

by Jeanne Mancini, contributor - 11/11/16 3:41 PM ET

The American people resoundingly rejected the abortion lobby in Tuesday’s historic election.

Hillary Clinton’s radical stance on abortion may have been one of the leading causes for her election loss — and the cause of the political demise of many others with similar alignments. Google listed abortion as one of the top issues searched on Election Day — and in fact, Google revealed that abortion was the top search affiliated with Hillary Clinton.

{mosads}Abortion was clearly a critical issue this election cycle and the American people strongly voted for life.

Top #ElectionDay issues searched with each candidate today. For #Clinton it’s abortion; for #Trump it’s racehttps://t.co/32O0weFqim pic.twitter.com/QeNYuiUP1e

— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) November 8, 2016

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats ran on the most extreme abortion platform in history, which included overturning the Hyde Amendment and unrestricted abortion access up until birth.

Clinton and her fellow Democrats did this despite the fact that Marist polling (the pollsters used by Wall Street Journal, NBC, and McClatchy) has repeatedly shown, including in its most recent poll in July, that the large majority of Americans (78 percent) are in favor of limiting abortion, at most, to the first three months of pregnancy.

We highlighted this fact in a March for Life Action ad that ran this election cycle.

In a breath-taking overreach, Clinton and the Democrats also wanted to eliminate the Hyde Amendment — a popular, longstanding bipartisan policy that prohibits taxpayer dollars from paying for abortions.

The Hyde Amendment, originally passed in 1976, has been included in the Appropriations bill for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services annually and has prohibited the use of taxpayer funds for most abortions through Medicaid, thereby reducing the actual number of abortions by as many as 60,000 a year.

The most recent Marist poll showed that 62 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, meanwhile Clinton and the Democratic platform still advocated for the Hyde Amendment to be eliminated.

Planned Parenthood, our nation’s largest abortion provider — a non-profit that receives more than $500 million in taxpayer funding every year — half of its billion-dollar budget, committed to spending over $30 million this election cycle to elect their pro-abortion allies to the White House, House and Senate.

Planned Parenthood heavily invested in Senate races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio, and lost all of these races to ardent pro-life candidates, in addition to the obvious loss of the White House.

This election cycle also revealed that if candidates are unwavering in their pro-life views — they will win. Three well-known Republican Senate candidates lost re-election — Senator Kirk of Illinois, Senator Ayotte of New Hampshire, and Senator Heck from Nevada — because they wavered on the life issues, their support on life, and their votes.

Conversely, a handful of Senators that have been stalwarts on the life issues stood strong throughout this entire election and secured re-election, including Senator Burr of North Carolina, Senator Toomey of Pennsylvania, Senator Johnson of Wisconsin, Senator Rubio of Florida and Senator Blunt of Missouri.

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Another interesting point is that pro-life Democrats were also re-elected. Senator Manchin from West Virginia, who has boldly advocated for life despite being attacked by many in his own party, was re-elected. And, at the House level, Congressman Dan Lipinski had the same success; he stood strong on his pro-life beliefs and was re-elected to represent the people of Illinois.

The most interesting race (besides the presidential election) on Tuesday night was that of Congresswoman Barbara Comstock. Comstock ran in a blue district and was consistently attacked for her pro-life views, but she remained steadfast on life and never backed down — and she won. I remember the barrage of negative television and radio ads blasting Comstock’s pro-life views, but the people spoke that night and elected a pro-life stalwart in a blue district – at 53 percent.

After the 2012 presidential election many, including the Republican National Committee, claimed that the Republicans lost because they needed to back away from the social issues. But this election shows the complete opposite is true. The social issues, specifically the life issue, are winning issues for Republicans and Democrats.

The main takeaway of this election is that there is a general consensus among Americans on abortion.

Despite spending a promised $30 million on this election, Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby suffered a huge defeat on Tuesday — not just in the presidential race, but in races in state after state after state. The radical pro-abortion agenda is out of touch with mainstream America and Tuesday’s election results showed that loud and clear.

Americans strongly favor abortion restrictions and if Tuesday tells us anything, it is that life is a winning issue. For those who might have advocated otherwise in this election, we invite you to consider joining the growing consensus for life.

Jeanne Mancini is the President of the March for Life.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.