Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Joe Biden’s changing views on abortion:
Joe Biden entered the senate in 1973, the same year the Supreme Court legalized abortion in its Roe v. Wade decision. He has evolved from being strongly pro-life to rabidly pro-abortion. Here is a list of his changing positions.
1974: A year after Roe v. Wade was decided, he said the ruling had gone “too far” and that a woman seeking an abortion should not have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
1976: He votes for the “Hyde Amendment” which bans federal funding of abortions.
1981: He introduces the “Biden Amendment” which prohibits foreign-aid funding of biomedical research involving abortion.
1982: He votes for a constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade.
1983: He votes against a constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade.
1984: He votes for the Mexico City Policy which bans federal funding for abortions.
1987: He becomes chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and leads the fight against Supreme Court nominee Judge Robert Bork, whom he said was opposed to Roe v. Wade.
1994: He says, “Those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.”
1995: He votes to ban partial-birth abortion.
1997: He votes to ban partial-birth abortion.
2003: He votes to ban partial-birth abortion
2007: He criticizes the Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on partial-birth abortion, calling it “paternalistic.”
2008: He says he is opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade.
2012: He says the government does not have “a right to tell other people that women, they can’t control their body.”
2019: He says he is opposed to the “Hyde Amendment” which bans the federal funding of abortion.
2020: He says he supports abortion “under any circumstances.”
There is no one in public life who has undergone such a dramatic transformation. He did not change because of the Catholic Church: it did not change its position on abortion. He did not change because of science: it did not change its position on when life begins. It was Biden who changed, and he did so for totally political reasons.
