Trump: I'll appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade abortion case

Donald Trump said the overturning of the landmark Supreme Court decision giving women the right to abortion "will happen, automatically," if he is elected president and gets to appoint justices to the high court.

"I am pro-life," Trump said during Wednesday night's presidential debate when asked whether he wanted that decision, Roe v. Wade, reversed by the Supreme Court.

Trump said that if the ruling were to be reversed, laws on the legality or illegality of abortion would "go back to the individual states" to decide, which was the case prior to Roe v. Wade.

But when moderator Chris Wallace pressed him on whether he wanted the ruling overturned, Trump said, "That will happen, automatically in my opinion," because he would get to nominate potentially several justices to the court.

In response, Hillary Clinton said, "I strongly support Roe v. Wade."

"I will defend Roe v. Wade, I will defend a woman's right to make her own decision," Clinton said.

She criticized Trump for having said in the past that a woman should be punished if she got an abortion when it was made illegal.

Trump fired back, saying Clinton was in favor of partial-birth abortions being legal, which meant that a fetus could be "ripped out" of a mother's womb a day before she was due to give birth.