To be fair, those who are basing their vote for Donald Trump in 2020 on abortion should at least clearly understand Joe Biden's stance on the issue. Political rumors and half-truths run rampant with such an emotional issue. Add to this, Biden's stand of abortion has changed over the years.
Joe Biden has demonstrated a deep public connection to his Catholic faith, dating to the earliest days of his political career. He regularly attends mass, has met with both Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict, and credited Catholicism with helping him heal after his son Beau's death in 2015.
"I'm prepared to accept for me, personally, doctrine of my church about when life begins, but I'm not prepared to impose that on every other person."
– Joe Biden, 2020
Ziad Munson – Chair; Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lehigh Univerity – in his book Abortion Politics (2018) traces the history of abortion in the U.S., as well as how the controversy surrounding the issue has been constructed and by what forces.
Ziad says the actual “meaning of abortion” has changed over time. The lesson of this history, he writes, is that:
"… there is nothing natural about how we think about the abortion issue or the role it plays in politics and society … Instead, abortion has been constructed as a controversial issue because of a variety of historical events, the decisions of various individuals, organizations and social movements over the course of the country's history, and the ways in which social environments have changed over time …
"… the abortion debate is, and always has been, defined by the changing connections between the issue and other social and cultural divide in the American social fabric. It is … in the end, a surprisingly empty vessel into which movements, politicians, and regular Americans have poured their anxieties and concerns."
(Ziad Munson. Abortion Politics. 2018)
More than four decades after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, opponents and supporters of abortion rights are still battling over the issue in court, at the ballot box and in state legislatures.
Roe v Wade is the landmark Supreme Court ruling from 1973 which safeguarded the right to an abortion on the national level. In Roe, the Supreme Court generally found that women have a right to an abortion and limited the ability of states to restrict access to the procedure, particularly in the earlier stages of pregnancy.
Roe protects a woman's right to an abortion only until viability – the point at which a foetus is able to live outside the womb, generally by the start of the third trimester, 28 weeks into a pregnancy. The court has also said abortions should be allowed after 24 weeks if the mother's life or health are at risk.
When it comes to the Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark abortion ruling, seven-in-ten Americans (70%) in a 2019 Pew survey said Roe v. Wade should not be completely overturned.
(“U.S. Public Continues to Favor Legal Abortion, Oppose Overturning Roe v. Wade.” Pew Research Center. August 29, 2019.)
However, with President Trump in the White House, anti-abortion activists are energized and Republican-controlled states have tightened restrictions. Polls, as well as these voter interviews, signal that abortion (and, specifically, opposition to abortion rights) is a big part of the glue keeping Trump's base together – a base that includes the overwhelming share of white evangelicals.
Joe Biden's Stance
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.”
(Jenavieve Hatch. “Joe Biden Reverses Stance On Federal Funding For Abortions. HuffPost. June 07, 2019.)
Biden’s position on abortion – that he is personally opposed to abortion but believes it should be legal in most cases – has remained fairly consistent over several decades. He has already made what is likely his last major shift, dropping support for the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion.
The Democratic candidate expressed his support for repealing the Hyde Amendment, which blocks taxpayer money from being used for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother. It has meant that lower-income women who receive government aid for healthcare have not been able to access abortion services.
Biden said he believes repealing the Hyde Amendment is the only way to promote an expansive health care plan funded by federal money that does not also curtail women’s access to abortions.
Biden says …
“I laid out a health care plan that’s going to provide federally funded health care for all women and women who now are denied even Medicare in their home states. It became really clear to me that although the Hyde Amendment was designed to try to split the difference here, to make sure women still had access, you can’t have access if everyone’s covered by a federal policy. That’s why at the same time I announced that policy, I announced that I could no longer continue to abide by the Hyde Amendment. That’s the reason.”
(Li Zhou. “Joe Biden explains why he flipped on the Hyde Amendment.” Vox. June 22, 2020.)
Biden’s other probable legislative move on abortion – canceling the Mexico City policy, which forbids federal funding to foreign groups that provide abortions has been a ping-pong ball in American politics for decades. Biden almost surely intends to cancel the policy once again if elected.
(James T. Keane. “Explainer: If Joe Biden wins, what does that mean for abortion policies?” America: The Jesuit Review. August 19, 2020.)
Biden has not explicitly expressed support for late-term abortions. He wants to codify Roe v. Wade and reup federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Biden's key message: “We will protect a woman's right to choose and fight to keep access to abortion legal.”
Biden wants to pass a federal law that protects a woman's right to have an abortion - that's something that more liberal states like New York have moved towards. Enshrining Roe this way would mean that even if the Supreme Court bucks the precedent going back almost 50 years, that right would still exist.
(“Abortion: How do Trump and Biden's policies compare? BBC News. September 15, 2020.)
Public Opinion
Public support for abortion rights is the highest in decades, according to the Pew Research Center, with 61% of people favoring legal access to the procedure while 38% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.
Though abortion is a divisive issue, more than half of U.S. adults take a non-absolutist position, saying that in most – but not all – cases, abortion should be legal (34%) or illegal (26%). Fewer take the position that in all cases abortion should be either legal (27%) or illegal (12%).
(“Public Opinion on Abortion Views on abortion, 1995-2019.” Pew Research Center. August 29, 2019.)
The Centers for Disease Control reported in 2016 that 91% of abortions occurred before 13 weeks of pregnancy, nearly 30% before eight weeks and only 1.2% after 21 weeks.
Guttmacher Institute reported the abortion rate in 2017 was 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44, down 8% from 14.6 per 1,000 in 2014. This is the lowest rate ever observed in the United States; in 1973, the year abortion became legal, the rate was 16.3.
Some 75% of abortion patients in 2014 were poor (having an income below the federal poverty level of $15,730 for a family of two in 2014) or low-income (having an income of 100–199% of the federal poverty level).
(R.K. Jones et al. Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States. 2017. 2019.)
(J. Jerman, R.K Jones and T. Onda. Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2016.)
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