If you can’t convince someone to support abortion with bodily rights arguments, try pushing the money angle, Chelsea Clinton told a group of abortion activists Saturday.

CNS News reports Clinton claimed the infamous U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade was a good thing, not only because it gave women the “dignity to make our own choices,” but also because it led to a $3.5 trillion boost to America’s economy.

“It is not a disconnected fact … that American women entering the labor force from 1973 to 2009 added three and a half trillion dollars to our economy. Right?” Clinton said during a “Rise Up for Roe” rally protesting U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“The net, new entrance of women – that is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973,” she continued.

Clinton said the money argument may convince some people to support Roe, which led to the legalized killing of unborn babies for basically any reason up to birth. Since the 1973 ruling, about 60 million unborn babies have been legally aborted in America.

“So, I think, whatever it is that people say they care about, I think that you can connect to this issue,” she said.

“Of course, I would hope that they would care about our equal rights and dignity to make our own choices – but, if that is not sufficiently persuasive, hopefully, some of these other arguments that you’ve expressed so beautifully, will be,” Clinton continued.

Her comments about using financial persuasion to support the killing of unborn babies are extremely disturbing, but they also are incorrect. Just because Roe v. Wade and a growing economy coincide does not mean one caused the other.

More importantly, research suggests the opposite may be true – that the legalized killing of 60 million babies since Roe v. Wade has hurt the American economy.

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In 1998, the late Larry Burkett, a highly-regarded financial adviser, argued:

This growing parity between the old and the young is at the heart of the demographic challenges that face Medicare and Social Security. Incredible as it may seem,by the time the peak of the baby boom generation reaches retirement age, the number of abortions since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision will equal the number of births in the baby boom. “If only one-third of those who have been aborted were available to start work on their 18th birthday,” speculated USA Today, “the demise of Social Security would be put off for decades.”

Indeed, it is largely because of abortion-on-demand that by the year 2030 the ratio of workers to Social Security beneficiaries will be reduced to only 2-to-1, according to a projection from the Social Security Board of Trustees. In other words, two workers will be supporting one retiree. (When the program began in the 1930s, 42 workers supported each retiree.)

Similarly, Dennis Howard, president of the pro-life group Movement for a Better America, argued in 2008 that the abortion deaths of 50 million unborn babies cost the U.S. about $35 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP). Still more research estimates a federal tax revenue loss of about $16 trillion due to the lost workforce.

But even if Clinton was correct, society would be left with the question of which is more important: money or human lives.