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Watch Planned Parenthood's Powerful Anti-Trump Ad

by April Siese

Donald Trump has continued to alienate those in favor of women's rights as well as sexual assault victims. His final presidential debate performance included erroneous statements about abortion, to offer just one example, among other things. He even used ISIS and unrelated global issues to distract from the incendiary statements he's made over the years about women. Released shortly before Wednesday night's debate, Planned Parenthood's powerful Anti-Trump ad responds to Trump's dismissing his comments from a 2005 Access Hollywood tape during which he bragged about groping and kissing women without permission.

Titled "We will be the reason Donald Trump will not be elected President," the nearly two-minute long PSA shows sexual assault survivors bravely sharing their stories and detailing how Trump's comments personally affect them.

Trump has chalked up his statements to "locker room talk" rather than take accountability for how they disrespect women. Ultimately, he claimed that it's "just words," and that he never acted upon those words. At least nine women have publicly accused Trump of doing what he described in that recording since it was released by The Washington Post. Trump has denied each allegation, stating that he never even met most of these women. But words still matter, and Planned Parenthood wants voters to consider their impact when heading to the polls.

An American is sexually assaulted every 109 seconds, according to statistics from the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. Though the rate of sexual violence has decreased significantly in recent years, the problem is still widespread. On average, 61,000 children and 284,000 Americans age 12 or older are victims of sexual assault per year. To chalk up his comments to "locker room talk" is to discredit this very real issue. And it's the opposite rhetoric of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood.

Early in the debate, Clinton explicitly championed the organization. She said:

I will defend Planned Parenthood. I will defend Roe vs. Wade and I will defend women's rights to make their own healthcare decisions. We have come too far to have that turn back now and indeed he said women should be punished; that there should be some form of punishment for women who obtain abortions. And I could just not be more opposed to that kind of thinking.

As Clinton famously said in her 1995 speech at the United Nations World Conference on Women, "women's rights are human rights." So, too. are victim's rights. Planned Parenthood found a powerful way to illustrate that while rallying against a man who may not have the nation's best interests at heart after all.