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Joe Biden’s positions on abortion have evolved over time, and recently, they seem to be changing at an increasingly rapid rate. The latest shift happened on Thursday, when the presidential candidate announced that he no longer supports a ban on government funding for abortion.
The Biden campaign told NBC News earlier this week that the former vice president did support the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for the procedure in most cases — a position that put him at odds with most of the 2020 Democratic field. But at a gala in Atlanta on Thursday night, Biden said that recent moves to restrict abortion at the state level had caused him to change his position.
“I can’t justify leaving millions of women without the health care they need,” he said, according to HuffPost. “If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support [the amendment].”
Though the Biden campaign characterized the candidate’s new position as a response to recent near-total bans on abortion at the state level, it’s not clear how allowing federal funding for abortions would mitigate the effects of those state laws. If abortion is banned in states like Alabama, residents wouldn’t be able to access the procedure, and the question of who pays for it would be moot.
Reproductive rights groups applauded Biden’s shift, but others criticized the reversal, with some noting that Biden campaign spokespeople were defending the candidate’s support for Hyde on television mere hours before he announced the change. Given his already-checkered history on abortion — he once voted for an amendment to allow states to overturn Roe v. Wade — some may see the change as too little, too late.
It is, however, significant that a centrist Democrat like Biden has now come out against Hyde. That shows that calling for a repeal of the amendment has become a mainstream position in the Democratic Party, something that was hard to imagine even five years ago.
Given that, Biden’s shift may say more about Democrats’ changing position on abortion rights than it does about the candidate’s own views.
Biden’s current position on Hyde was in doubt — until now
The Hyde Amendment, first passed in 1976, bans federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the life of the pregnant patient. The exceptions for rape and incest were added in 1993, when Bill Clinton was president.
As a senator in the 1970s and ’80s, Biden supported the federal funding ban and opposed efforts to add the rape and incest exceptions, according to NBC.
Biden’s positions on abortion have changed over time. A Catholic who has said he is “personally opposed to abortion,” he voted in the early 1980s in favor of a constitutional amendment to allow states to overturn Roe v. Wade.
But more recently, he has expressed support for Roe, calling it in a 2007 interview “the only means by which, in this heterogeneous society of ours, we can reach some general accommodation on what is a religiously charged and a publicly charged debate.”
Campaign spokesperson Bill Russo told the New York Times earlier this year that Biden supports Roe, but would not say whether he still supports the ban on federal funding for abortions.
On Wednesday, the campaign told NBC News, and confirmed to Vox, that Biden still supported the Hyde Amendment.
The campaign told Vox that if recent efforts to restrict abortion access — including near-total bans on abortion in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and elsewhere — succeed, Biden would be open to repealing Hyde.
On Thursday, Biden reversed course, announcing that he no longer supports the amendment.
BREAKING: @JoeBiden just announced that in the current environment where women’s rights are under such attack nationwide, he can no longer support the Hyde Amendment #RepealHyde #gapol #iwillvotegala pic.twitter.com/ITFkeRbYra
— Abigail Collazo (@LeftStandingUp) June 7, 2019
“State after state, including Georgia, are passing extreme laws in clear violation of the constitutional right protected by Roe ― some going so far as to deny exceptions even for rape and incest,” Jamal Brown, national press secretary for the Biden campaign, told HuffPost.
“It’s clear these folks will stop at nothing to get rid of Roe ― and it’s clear we have to be just as strong in our defense of it.”
None of the near-total bans on abortion passed in recent months have gone into effect yet, and all have been or are likely to be challenged in court. But if they do take effect, abortion would be banned in the affected states as early as six weeks into pregnancy — or, in Alabama, at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions.
It’s not clear how allowing federal funding for abortions would help patients in that event, since the procedure would be banned in nearly all cases — paying for it would no longer be the issue. A spokesperson for the campaign could not clarify on Wednesday how Biden saw a repeal of Hyde impacting patients in the event of near-total bans at the state level.
Biden’s shift is a sign of something bigger
Biden’s change of position on the Hyde amendment marks a bigger shift in Democratic politics.
Supporters of the amendment argue that taxpayer funding shouldn’t be used to pay for abortions. But opponents argue that the amendment, which bans Medicaid coverage for most abortions, creates a two-tiered system where middle-class and affluent patients can access the procedure and poorer patients cannot.
The amendment, which is popular in polls, was long regarded as untouchable by Democratic candidates. But more recently, thanks in part to grassroots activism arguing that abortion needs to be not just legal but affordable, candidates have begun calling for repeal.
Hillary Clinton did so in 2016, and a number of Democrats, including Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren, have done so this year. Sen. Bernie Sanders criticized Biden’s position on Wednesday.
There is #NoMiddleGround on women’s rights. Abortion is a constitutional right. Under my Medicare for All plan, we will repeal the Hyde Amendment.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 5, 2019
Reproductive rights groups praised Biden on Thursday for getting in line with an emerging consensus within the Democratic Party.
“We’re glad that Joe Biden listened to the voices of millions of women and further clarified his position on the Hyde Amendment,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement on Thursday. “We’re pleased that Joe Biden has joined the rest of the 2020 Democratic field in coalescing around the Party’s core values — support for abortion rights, and the basic truth that reproductive freedom is fundamental to the pursuit of equality and economic security in this country.”
Biden does support codifying Roe in state law, so that federal protections for abortion will stand even if the decision is overturned, Brown, the Biden campaign national press secretary, told Vox.
“Vice President Biden believes we must protect the progress we’ve made and has called on codifying the decision in Roe to ensure this choice remains between a woman and her doctor,” he said.
A number of other Democratic candidates, including Gillibrand and Warren, have also called for legislation codifying Roe.
Abortion opponents, meanwhile, criticized Biden’s change of position on Hyde.
“Joe Biden’s support for taxpayer funding of abortion after decades of opposition is just the latest example of Democratic extremism on abortion,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, in a Friday statement. “Long gone are the days of ‘safe, legal, and rare.’”
She was referring to statements made by Bill Clinton in 1992, and Hillary Clinton in 2008, that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” While some statements accusing Democrats of extremism on abortion have been misleading, it’s true that the party has indeed moved on from “safe, legal, and rare” and is coalescing around a position that requires abortion to be not just legal but affordable to all. Biden’s shift is the latest evidence of that.
