- President Joe Biden has been softening his approach to abortion in an appeal to voters ahead of the presidential election, causing division among his more left-leaning supporters.
- Abortion advocates have complained that the president’s focus on cases like Kate Cox, who sued the state of Texas to abort her unborn child after it was diagnosed with a medical condition, leads people to think of certain kinds of abortions as either “good” or “bad.”
- “His reluctance to do a happy dance for Planned Parenthood likely stems from his understanding that death by intentional abortion is nothing to celebrate and something that does not inspire voters,” Kristi Hamrick, vice president of Media & Policy, Students for Life Action, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
President Joe Biden’s campaign promised to make abortion policy a key campaign issue leading up to November, but recently he has angered his progressive base by appearing to focus only on more moderate cases.
Biden has repeatedly called for Congress to restore Roe v. Wade after it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2022, but Americans are deeply split on the issue and recently the president has appeared to tone down his position to appeal to moderates on the issue, according to Politico. During his State of the Union address, Biden failed to mention the word abortion entirely, opting for terms like” reproductive freedom” and the “right to choose,” riling his base of supporters. (RELATED: Trump Looking To Avoid VP Pick That Is Too Pro-Life: REPORT)
“I think it’s really a craven political ploy. He is trying to reach sort of what he considers to be the low hanging fruit of individuals who might be more moderate Republicans or independents who haven’t aligned with the traditional Democratic perspective of abortion on demand up until birth,” Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow with the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Biden’s reelection campaign has placed a significant emphasis on abortion, saying in June 2023 that they were finding ways to make the issue “front and center.” However, just days later the president cited his Catholic faith, saying he personally is “not big on abortion,” while also reiterating that the choice should be between a “woman and her doctor,” during a campaign reception in June.
The Catholic Church has long been opposed to abortion and the Catechism states that “since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion,” and notes that the “teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”
U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stand onstage and wave to the crowd at a ”Reproductive Freedom Campaign Rally” at George Mason University on January 23, 2024 in Manassas, Virginia. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
In February, Biden claimed that he doesn’t “want abortion on demand” and that a “woman should have her choice early on” during another campaign event. The president has placed a special emphasis on cases like Kate Cox, who sued the state of Texas to abort her unborn child after it was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a condition causing multiple structural abnormalities.
In November, 77% of Democrats said they would support abortion for any reason, according to a Wall Street Journal-NORC poll. Pro-life advocates told the DCNF that Biden’s current strategy to win over more moderate voters won’t work when faced with his base who want “no-limits abortion.”
“Biden and the Democrats exploit tragic situations to distract from the truth of their radical no-limits abortion agenda,” Emily Erin Davis, VP of communications, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the DCNF. “On the campaign trail, they don’t want to talk about the 96% of abortions that involve healthy moms and healthy babies. In Washington, they’re happy to push ‘worse-than-Roe’ legislation that would force all-trimester abortions in every state and strip parents of their rights, and to pay for abortions with taxpayer dollars, as long as they think they won’t get caught and exposed.”
Abortion advocates have raised concerns that Biden’s mellowing on the issue leads people to think of certain kinds of abortions as either “good” or “bad,” and undermines the push for the procedure to be under the sole discretion of the woman and her doctor, according to Politico.
“The president is part and parcel of the culture of stigma and shame that surrounds abortion care,” Dr. Jamila Perritt, president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, told Politico. “Privileging certain stories allows us to ‘other’ people.”
Biden has come a long way from his initial position on abortion when he was a senator from Delaware where he advocated for abortion as a safe, legal and rare practice, according to Politico. Despite his claims that he doesn’t “want abortion on demand,” Biden on Monday introduced a budget that would remove the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions, and on March 7 announced that his administration had put out a rule finalizing a previously interim proposal allowing Veteran Affairs medical centers to provide abortions.
Only 34% of Americans, however, said they would support abortion for any reason, while 51% voiced their support for abortions in some cases as of May 2023, according to a Gallup poll.
“As a man who wants to get re-elected, Biden likely knows that less than one in 10 Youth Voters supports the radical agenda of the Democratic Party of abortion through all 9 months, for any reason or no reason, paid for by taxpayers, up to and including infanticide for babies who survive a botched abortion,” Kristi Hamrick, vice president of Media & Policy, Students for Life Action, told the DCNF. “His reluctance to do a happy dance for Planned Parenthood likely stems from his understanding that death by intentional abortion is nothing to celebrate and something that does not inspire voters.”
“What he’s going to do is create enemies within his own base, but this is the perfect example of the illiberal liberalism of the modern Democratic Party. When you start to draw hard lines on issues that should be black and white or to begin to develop gray areas of purported distinction, you begin alienating people who only ever wanted one extreme or the other,” Parshall Perry told the DCNF.
The White House did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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