Jekyll & Hyde — Biden’s flip-flop on abortion funding
By: Jeff Quinton
Tags: Abortion, Democratic Party, Joe Biden, 2020 Presidential Race, Pro Life

It was just Wednesday morning that The Hill reported that, “Joe Biden’s presidential campaign confirmed that he still supports a controversial ban prohibiting the use of federal funds for certain abortion services.”

By Thursday night, he had reversed course after a withering amount of criticism by pro-abortion extremists on the left, including most of his primary opponents. Beto O’Rourke criticized Biden by name while Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker all expressed their opposition to the Hyde Amendment.

Several of those critical of Hyde claimed that the funding ban disproportionately affected minority women.

O’Rourke on Biden:

Perhaps he doesn’t have all the facts. Perhaps he doesn’t understand who the Hyde Amendment hurts the most … lower income communities, communities of color. I would ask that he rethink his position on this.

Booker on Hyde:

Sen. Cory Booker insisted Wednesday that he is “not talking about other candidates,” but said “the Hyde Amendment is direct assault on black and brown communities.”

Other Democratic candidates didn’t directly refer to race but instead used the terms “vulnerable” and “low-income.”

Biden discussed his reasoning for his reversal at a Democratic National Committee event:

Biden said at the Democratic National Committee fundraising gala he supported the Hyde Amendment for many years because he did not believe women’s rights were “under attack” then but “circumstances have changed.” “I can’t justify leaving millions of women without access to the care they need and the ability … to exercise their constitutional protected right,” Biden said.

The articles all note that Biden is a staunch Catholic who is personally pro-life but claims he doesn’t want to impose that view politically.

Biden has been criticized by church leaders in the past:

“When prominent Catholics publicly misrepresent timeless Church doctrine — as Biden and Pelosi regrettably did (to say nothing of erring in biology!) — a bishop has the duty to clarify,” [Cardinal Timothy Dolan] said. Several bishops at the time insisted that despite his personal views, given his pro-choice political stance if Biden presented himself for communion in their diocese he would be refused.

Just this week, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield (IL) said that State Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, along with others who supported the extreme Reproductive Health Act, should not present themselves for communion without first going to Reconciliation. Another bishop said in 2008 that he would deny communion to Biden.

Biden caving to the extremists in his own party shows that he is worried about being too moderate for the party’s hard left base, which will turn out strong in the primaries. In addition to possibly guaranteeing the president’s re-election, these candidates and activists have their facts wrong.

As I noted above, the Democrats cited claim that the Hyde Amendment disproportionately affects African-American and Latino Women. If this were the case, you’d think those groups would lag behind white women in procuring abortions.

However, the government-run Centers for Disease Control and the pro-abortion think tank The Alan Guttmacher Institute have presented some statistics that appear to contradict these claims.

These numbers, cited by Abort73.com:

Here’s what it looks like by the numbers. According to the latest census data, just over 12% of the U.S. population is black,4 and yet somewhere between 28–36% of all 2014 abortions were performed on black babies. The Guttmacher Institute puts that number at 28%, based on voluntary survey data from 8,380 respondents.5 The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) places the number at 36%, based on actual counts of every abortion performed in the 30 states/districts that collect and report abortion data by race.6 By comparison, non-Hispanic white women make up 61% of the placeopulation but account for only 38–39% of all abortions.7 Among black women, the current abortion ratio is 391.8 That means there are 391 abortions for every 1,000 live births. Statistically, 28% of black pregnancies end in abortion (excluding miscarriages). Among white women, the abortion ratio is 121 — which means less than 11% of white pregnancies end in abortion.9 The current abortion rate among black women, which is the number of abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age is 26.6.10 That means that in 2014, 2.7% of black women, aged 15–44, had an abortion. By comparison, only 0.75% of white women of reproductive age had an abortion that year.11

Biden’s stated position of being personally pro-life but not in favor of laws restricting abortion placed him in a pretty moderate place along with many Democrats, Independents, and even a few Republicans.

However, his surrender to the extremists of his party who oppose the Hyde Amendment helps complete the devolution of the Democratic Party’s position on the issue.

Bill Clinton once said, in the 1990s, that he wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.” and the Democratic Party platform reflected that. Moving forward to 2016, the party platform called for the repeal of Hyde.

Now in 2019, we have a spate of new pro-life laws that have passed in response to extreme pro-abortion proposals and laws in vaious states. This led Cardinal Dolan to point out that those politicians and activists pushing these abortion-rights measures want abortion to be “dangerous, imposed, and frequent.”

Biden’s Dr. Jekyll turn on the Hyde Amendment could ensure he wins his party’s nomination. However, his party’s desire that there be no restrictions on at all on taxpayer-funded abortion through the end of the third trimester may be one large factor that helps sink them in the general election.