Debate Cheat Sheet: How Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Compare in One Epic Chart

SECRETARY HILLARY CLINTON

DONALD TRUMP

ABORTION

Clinton shut down an anti-abortion member of Congress. As secretary of state, she fiercely defended the role of the U.S. government in family planning, calling it an essential part of reproductive health care — including access to safe and legal abortion.

Clinton fought attempts to ban safe and legal abortion. As senator, she helped prevent the passage of bills that would have eliminated the ability to access abortion safely and legally. She also voted to protect access — including for military servicewomen and low-income women.

Clinton pledged to repeal the Hyde Amendment — so that a woman’s income or zip code doesn’t determine whether or not she can access abortion safely and legally. She said Hyde has harmful implications for women accessing abortion: “Any right that requires you to take extraordinary measures to access it is no right at all.”

Trump said he wants to ban abortion and that the best way to do it is “by electing me president.”

Trump said if abortion is banned, there “has to be some form of punishment” for any woman who has one, but the man involved in the pregnancy shouldn’t be punished. After being criticized for saying that, Trump said it was “not a wrong answer” and that “a lot of people thought [his] answer was excellent.”

Trump said he would appoint anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court, including Judge William Pryor — a man who called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law." 

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE

When it comes to supporting reproductive health legislation, Clinton has gone above and beyond. For instance, while in the Senate, she was the foremost sponsor of the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act, an effort to ensure that emergency contraception would be available at military treatment facilities for victims of sexual assault. The military lifted its ban on emergency contraception at military facilities in 2010.

When the presidential debates ignored reproductive health care, Clinton wouldn’t have it — she refocused the conversation, boldly stating that a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health care decisions “goes to the heart of who we are as women, our rights, our autonomy, our ability to make our own decisions, and we need to be talking about that.”

Clinton helped launch the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which supports access to birth control, family planning, and sex education. Teen birth rates are now at a 40-year low.

Donald Trump has stated that a pregnant woman is an “inconvenience” for her employers, and has pledged over and over to block patients from being able to turn to Planned Parenthood — even if it means shutting down the government to do so.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Clinton has been an outspoken and frequent supporter of Planned Parenthood on and beyond the campaign trail. After anti-abortion extremists threatened Planned Parenthood health centers with funding cuts, smear videos, and violent attacks, Clinton was loud and clear about standing with Planned Parenthood, including tweeting over 50 times about her support.

When Planned Parenthood was mentioned in the Democratic debates, Clinton was the first or only candidate to stand up for Planned Parenthood, calling out the moderators for never asking about abortion rights: "We need to be talking about that and defending Planned Parenthood from these outrageous attacks."

There is no doubt that President Clinton will be a strong supporter and defender of Planned Parenthood: As she said herself, “I will always defend Planned Parenthood. And I will say, consistently and proudly: Planned Parenthood should be funded, supported, and appreciated — not undermined, misrepresented, and demonized.”

Trump has repeatedly called for “defunding” Planned Parenthood — in other words banning patients from turning to Planned Parenthood health centers for care. “I’m for defunding Planned Parenthood, very strongly,” he said.

Trump said he would even support a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding. That’s right: He would shut down the whole government just to try and block patients who rely on federal funds from getting birth control and cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood.

BIRTH CONTROL

Clinton waged a multiyear effort​ — and even blocked the nomination of an FDA head with Sen. Patty Murray — to pass a breakthrough in birth control access: the approval of emergency contraception available over the counter.

Clinton stood up to the Bush administration when it proposed a rule that would have defined widely used birth control methods such as IUDs as abortion and allowed medical providers to refuse to offer contraception to patients. Thanks to vocal opposition from senators like Clinton, the rule was not enforced and women’s birth control access was protected.

As per usual, Trump doesn’t have an official policy position on birth control. Yet we know that blocking patients from care at Planned Parenthood and repealing the ACA — which Trump has called for — would disrupt access to birth control for millions of women, including the more than 55 million women who now enjoy access to no-copay birth control coverage thanks to the ACA.

GENDER PAY GAP

Clinton not only supported pay equity — she helped lead the charge on the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Act, which is now the law of the land. She also introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act three times: ​in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Unfortunately, Republicans have repeatedly blocked its passage in Congress.

On the campaign trail, Clinton has called time and again for action to eliminate the gender pay gap, acknowledging the disproportionate effect it has on women of color. Clinton vowed to work to promote pay transparency and combat workplace discrimination as president.

Clinton compensates her female and male campaign staff equally.

Trump said it’s fair to pay working mothers less than men because they take care of their children: “An employer could say she’s not giving 100 percent, she’s giving me 84 percent, and 16 percent is going towards taking care of children,’ Trump said. ‘So maybe you can also understand the employer’s point of view.’”

Trump once said: “Putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing” because if he comes home “and dinner’s not ready, I’ll go through the roof, OK?”

A former Trump staffer sued him for gender discrimination, claiming the campaign paid male staffers more than women in the same role.

Trump pays men on his campaign staff 35% more than he pays women.

INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING

As senator, Clinton introduced the legislation to restore funding to the UN Population Fund so it could continue to help women and girls access reproductive health care worldwide. President Bush suspended funding for it, but as secretary of state Clinton helped lead the U.S. in overturning the Bush administration's harmful policy.

Clinton was a powerful secretary of state who used her office to increase rights for millions of women and girls across the globe. In an unprecedented move, Clinton launched the federal Office of Global Women's Issues to integrate women as central partners in decisions about foreign policy.

Clinton started myriad global programs that help women and girls survive extreme hardship in rural areas, as well as enter fields such as business and public service. As secretary of state, Clinton’s unwavering international advocacy for women and girls included efforts to ensure their access to reproductive health care, as well as foreign policy that aims to make women and girls central partners in achieving human rights goals.

Since you made it this far, here’s Trump’s position on something he has seemed to prioritize: the size of women’s breasts. “A person who is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10,” Trump said.

HEALTH CARE COVERAGE

Clinton created a plan for universal health coverage that many credit as the root of the ACA, a law that guarantees no-copay birth control access and which Clinton has vowed to expand.

Clinton has already fought the system to make it better for us — as First Lady she created the SCHIP program, expanding health insurance for eight million kids who come from low-income families.

Senator Ted Kennedy credited Clinton for her efforts as First Lady to push for the creation of SCHIP, saying: “The children’s health program wouldn’t be in existence today if we didn’t have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Trump would repeal the ACA in favor of some vague system called ‘Donaldcare’ but has yet to offer clear specifics on what the health care alternative would be. We already know the specifics on what would happen without the ACA: We’d go back to the days when insurance companies could charge women more for health insurance just for being women, and to the days of paying out-of-pocket for birth control that is currently guaranteed to be covered without copay.

SOCIAL JUSTICE & IMMIGRATION

Clinton has fought to change the system for those who were being left out. She introduced a bill called the Legal Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act, aimed at ending the five-year waiting period for immigrant children and pregnant women to participate in the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Clinton cosponsored legislation to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession that disproportionately impacted communities of color.

Clinton cosponsored the End Racial Profiling Acts of 2001 and 2004.

Clinton co-sued Arizona over voting rights violations, including a lack of voting places, which proved to be especially burdensome to Black, Hispanic and indigenous communities

Trump has been unapologetic and unrelenting in his racist attacks on Latinos, calling Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists.” Trump also attacked a U.S. District Court Judge presiding over a lawsuit about the Trump University scam for his Mexican heritage, as well as kicked a Univision reporter out of a news conference for trying to ask about immigration.

Trump has been embraced by members of the KKK and neo-nazis.

Trump has called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the United States.

Trump incites violence at his rallies, saying things like, “I’d like to punch [a protester] in the face” and that a Black Lives Matter protester should have been “roughed up.”

Trump plans to build a wall separating Mexico from the United States that he said he intends to make Mexico pay for.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Over 20 years ago, Clinton traveled to China as First Lady to talk about poverty, violence, and lack of access to health care at the UN World Conference on Women. There she gave her historic speech proclaiming: “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all.”

As First Lady, Clinton supported the creation of the Department of Justice's first Office of Violence Against Women.

Secretary Clinton chaired a UN Security Council special session during which the UN decided to adopt a resolution recognizing rape as a weapon of war and to end sexual violence against women and children in conflict zones.

Trump: “I like kids...I won’t do anything to take care of them. I’ll supply funds and she’ll take care of the kids. It’s not like I’m gonna be walking the kids down Central Park.”

On sexual assault of women in the military, Trump said: “What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?”