It wasn’t enough for Joe Biden to praise Dick Cheney; now he’s decided to join Republicans in still supporting the Hyde Amendment—the rule that forbids any tax dollars from being used for abortion services.
He’s always been a staunch supporter of the Hyde Amendment. “As a U.S. senator from Delaware, Biden voted against a 1977 compromise that allowed Medicaid to fund abortions that included exceptions for victims of rape and incest in addition to concerns for the life of the mother,” reports NBC News. “While the rape and incest exceptions passed in that case, Biden voted in 1981 to again remove them, in what was the most far-reaching ban on federal funds ever enacted by Congress.” Holy shit. That’s extreme shit.
Luckily, the rest of the serious Democratic candidates are on solid footing. Elizabeth Warren’s reaction to Biden’s support for the amendment was unbelievably good. Pete Buttigieg has a deft touch when discussing the topic. Bernie Sanders was unequivocal about ending the Hyde Amendment, as was (of course) Kamala Harris.
In a political climate in which red states are emboldened to assault reproductive rights with the hope that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will deliver a death blow to Roe v. Wade, it’s tragic that there’s any daylight between our presidential contenders on the issue.
Then again, we do need to whittle the field down some more. So maybe Biden is doing everyone a favor.
Under the Hyde Amendment and every one of these efforts to try to chip away or to push back or to get rid of Roe v. Wade, understand this: Women of means will still have access to abortions. Who won't will be poor women, will be working women, will be women who can't afford to take off three days from work, will be very young women, will be women who have been raped, will be women who have been molested by someone in their own family. We do not pass laws that take away that freedom from the women who are most vulnerable.
Buttigieg: I think the dialogue has gotten so caught up on where you draw the line that we’ve gotten away from the fundamental question of who gets to draw the line and I trust women to draw the line when it’s their own health.
Chris Wallace: So just to be clear, you’re saying you would be okay with a woman, well into the third trimester deciding to abort her pregnancy.
Buttigieg: Look, these hypotheticals are usually set up in order to provoke a strong emotional --
Wallace: It’s not hypothetical, there are 6,000 women a year who get abortions in the third trimester.
Buttigieg: That’s right, representing less than 1 percent of cases. So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in that situation. If it’s that late in your pregnancy, then almost by definition, you’ve been expecting to carry it to term. We’re talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name. Women who have purchased a crib, families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother or viability of the pregnancy that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice. And the bottom line is as horrible as that choice is, that woman, that family may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance, but that decision is not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made."