This clip surprised me. Joe Biden used to be a somewhat standard-issue moderate-ish Democrat on abortion -- embracing the pro-choice party line, while supporting certain common sense guardrails and limitations. One of his red lines was supporting the Hyde Amendment, which bars funding abortions with taxpayer dollars. It was Biden's abandonment of this 'principle,' which he'd supported for decades, that signaled a capitulation abortion dogma in Democratic presidential politics. Going all-in on abortion is now a requirement from the party's activist and donor class, so Catholic Joe uprooted a long-held belief and did what was demanded of him. As president, Biden endorsed Democrats' truly radical abortion-on-demand legislation, a fact that we noted recently when his press secretary tried to spin his stance as simply pursuing a restoration of Roe v. Wade:
Joe Biden (unlike his old self) supports legalized abortion-on-demand, for any reason, paid for by taxpayers, through all nine months of pregnancy. There is no limit he or his party supports. It's ghastly and extreme. Instead, the Press Secretary deflects to Roe, but Biden and the Democrats actively support policies that go far beyond Roe. They oppose any restrictions whatsoever on abortion, which is a truly repugnant position that is deeply unpopular among the public, and is so radical that very few countries on earth embrace such inhumane regimes (North Korea and Russia being among those callous few). Democrats have been very successful at avoiding telling the truth about their horrific stance, while convincing voters that Republicans will ban all abortions, especially in morally and emotionally fraught, but rare, circumstances.
Read this post and refresh your memory on the ghastly, Biden-endorsed 'Women’s Health Protection Act,' which was debated and defeated in 2022. It would have gone well beyond 'codifying Roe' by establishing a nationwide regime of legalized abortion for all nine months of pregnancy, gutting and eliminating even modest and overwhelmingly-popular state-level limitations. The legislation was so extreme that even a consistently pro-choice Republican Senators like Maine's Susan Collins and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski couldn't stomach it. Their alternative, bipartisan legislation came a lot closer to actually codifying Roe, but it went nowhere. At the time, Murkowski slammed Democratic leadership for rebuffing a compromise that reflected their poll-tested rhetoric because it failed to satisfy their radical intentions: “I have long supported a woman’s right to choose, but my position is not without limits, and this partisan Women’s Health Protection Act simply goes too far," she said. "It would broadly supersede state laws and infringe on Americans’ religious freedoms. The fact that my choice is between this bill, or nothing at all, shows how insincere Majority Leader Schumer is about protecting women’s rights." A fair assessment. But what's this? Is Joe Biden zig-zagging back into genuine 'codify Roe' territory?
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Biden: "I love how Trump is saying Biden is for abortion on demand. That's not true. That's not what Roe v. Wade said. It said the three trimesters." pic.twitter.com/DDr5DZLYoo
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 5, 2024
Based on the bill Biden aggressively supported, it's absolutely true to say he's for abortion-on-demand. But here, Biden refers to the trimester-based system erected under Roe, as succinctly summarized by Oyez:
In the first trimester of pregnancy, the state may not regulate the abortion decision; only the pregnant woman and her attending physician can make that decision. In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health. In the third trimester, once the fetus reaches the point of “viability,” a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, so long as the laws contain exceptions for cases when abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the mother.
My guess is that this was an unscripted and unauthorized comment from the president, reverting back to his stance of yesteryear. He may have a lingering instinct that unfettered abortion-on-demand isn't a moral or popular position, so he's freelancing. Like Trump, Biden may have a sense that the smart political play is landing somewhere closer to America's center of gravity on this thorny subject. Under other circumstances, this might be construed as a tack toward the center ahead of a general election. Given the nature of abortion politics on the Left, however, if these comments get any traction, I would expect them to be walked back in some form. The president's remark would certainly be good fodder for a series of questions from a journalist, preferably someone willing to drill down with follow-ups, but how likely is that to occur? Especially since the president's team obviously doesn't trust him to perform adequately in interviews?
Scoop: President Biden has declined to take part in a pre-game Super Bowl interview, CBS News confirms, marking the second consecutive year has has chosen to do -- even though the conversation might reach millions in an election year....https://t.co/S0Db2e58ha
— Brian Steinberg (@bristei) February 3, 2024
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