Last Friday marked the 40th anniversary of what is known as the Hyde Amendment. Named after Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, a staunch supporter of life, this amendment was enacted in 1976 and since its passage has enabled more than two million people to enjoy the fundamental right to life. Amidst all of the negative news in the mainstream media, this certainly should have been cause for at least a little celebration, but it was barely even mentioned.

The Hyde Amendment simply prevents specific taxpayer funding of abortions in various federal health programs such as those run by the Department of Health and Human Services, Medicaid and Medicare among others. While the Hyde Amendment does not prevent tax dollars from funding the nation’s largest abortion mill, Planned Parenthood, it at least stops money from going directly to those who would use a government program to have an abortion.

This amendment has saved an estimated 60,000 lives annually in the United States since its passage and the reason this amendment is so important is best explained by Hyde himself: We “cannot in logic and conscience help fund the execution of these innocent, defenseless, human lives.” The results from numerous studies on the impact of the Hyde Amendment are pretty clear: by cutting funding for abortions, fewer abortions occur.

The Hyde Amendment has been renewed every year since its initial passage with bipartisan congressional support and has been signed into law by both Republican and Democrat presidents. However, there is a new push from Democrats to dismantle the amendment and use taxpayer dollars to directly fund more abortions. In fact, the Democrat National Convention included a full repeal of the Hyde Amendment as part of its 2016 presidential platform.

Here is another fact that leftists willfully ignore. The Hyde Amendment has had a positive impact on poor women and women of color who use Medicaid as their primary means of health insurance. In other words, this amendment has helped to keep babies alive that would have otherwise been aborted if women in these two groups had been able to use Medicaid to do so. How many minorities are alive today because Democrats didn’t get their way?

Many rabid pro-abortionists were disappointed that the Hyde Amendment was not one of the topics in the presidential candidate debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps it will come up as a topic in tonight’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Tim Kaine. Pence is a Christian conservative who has been a leader in protecting the lives of unborn babies during his public service. Kaine is a professing Catholic, and has stated regarding the issue of the death penalty that “God grants life, God should take it away — that’s my religious belief.” As for abortion, he claims to be “personally opposed,” but he doesn’t apply his beliefs to abortion policy, rendering his personal view either meaningless or a lie.

Kaine has not stood for his belief, instead choosing party over principle. He has chosen to take sides with the party that wants to expand “abortion rights” and this has caused his fellow Catholics a bit of a headache in choosing for whom to cast their vote.

Abortion is one of the darkest areas in the history of our nation. With all of the advances in science and medicine that reveal life in the womb, it is incomprehensible that liberal Democrats and the mainstream media have lasted this long in pushing the lie that abortion is a woman’s “right” and that it should be their “choice,” based in part upon the myth that it’s not actually a baby.

On this issue and in this year’s election the choice is clear. If Hillary Clinton is elected president, she promises to make repealing the Hyde Amendment one of her top priorities. Further, she wants to expand abortion to 36 weeks. She champions a woman’s “choice” over the right to life from a baby who has no voice.

On the other hand, Donald Trump has vowed to make the Hyde Amendment permanent. Instead of passing yearly provisions, as has been the case for decades, he wants the Hyde Amendment codified into law. Perhaps this is an issue around which conservatives and those who value life from either party can coalesce. Between Trump and Clinton, the choice is indeed a matter of life or death.