Joe Biden on Abortion and the Hyde Amendment

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/joe-biden-abortion-hyde-amendment.html

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For all Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s efforts to focus his campaign on the economy and the middle class, he has been unable to escape his past views on more contentious subjects — particularly abortion, which has become one of the defining issues of the 2020 race.

He supports abortion rights — but he hasn’t always. Over his nearly 50-year career, he has swung back and forth, grappling with what he saw as a conflict between abortion rights and his Catholic faith.

When he became a senator in 1973, he argued that the Supreme Court had gone “too far” in its Roe v. Wade ruling. Later, he shifted to say that abortion should be legal but the government shouldn’t fund it. That was his position until this month, which brings us to the Hyde Amendment.

For decades, Mr. Biden supported the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion under programs like Medicaid. As recently as June 5, he said he still did.

But after an outcry, in which it became clear that he was the only candidate in the Democratic field in favor of the measure, he reversed himself, saying he could no longer support a law that made abortion rights “dependent on someone’s ZIP code.”

[Read more about the Hyde Amendment’s history and impact.]

The volleys over abortion are part of a larger problem for Mr. Biden: his inability, at least so far, to shake off parts of his record that are now out of sync with many Democratic voters. The same dynamic applies to his history on criminal justice and segregation.

On abortion in particular, many Democrats have adopted an uncompromising stance, trying to push the party from defense to offense. As the political climate shifts, Mr. Biden’s inconsistent record could be a liability no matter what position he takes now.