Pro-Life Pushback Against Biden Scrapping Hyde Amendment: ‘Fatal Move’

In this May 1, 2019, photo, former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Jo
AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
Dr. Susan Berry

National pro-life leaders are pushing back against Joe Biden and his latest statement in favor of repealing the Hyde Amendment, a move that would force taxpayers to fund abortion at the federal level.

After all the former vice president’s flip-flopping about whether federal taxpayer monies should fund abortion, Biden received tremendous pressure from the abortion lobby and its allies to drop his old-school support for the Hyde Amendment and get in sync with the other 2020 Democrat hopefuls who support abortion on demand at any time during pregnancy for any reason.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, however, calls Biden’s decision to support scrapping the Hyde Amendment a “fatal move” politically:

“While Joe Biden may be taking a politically expedient position in the Democratic primary as candidates race to the left on abortion, he will pay the price in the general election,” Dannenfelser said. “Joe Biden is supposed to be the one candidate who can win back working class Democrats who backed Trump – this will prove to be a fatal move should he be the nominee.”

According to a Marist poll released in February, 34 percent of Democrats identify as pro-life, and 61 percent, pro-choice, compared to 20 percent and 75 percent, respectively, only one month earlier in January, when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed extreme abortion legislation into law that declared the procedure a “fundamental right.”

Also at that time, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said during a radio interview that, according to legislation proposed in his state, the fate of infants who survived abortion would be dependent on a conversation between the mother and the doctor.

The Marist survey found 75 percent of Americans say abortion should be limited to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy, including 78 percent of independents, 60 percent of Democrats, and 61 percent of people who identify as pro-choice.

“Current proposals that promote late-term abortion have reset the landscape and language on abortion in a pronounced – and very measurable – way,” said Marist Poll director Barbara Carvalho in a press release. She added:

The recent legal changes to late-term abortion and the debate which followed have not gone unnoticed by the general public…there has been a significant increase in the proportion of Americans who see themselves as pro-life and an equally notable decline in those who describe themselves as pro-choice.

Dannenfelser remarked that Biden’s support for taxpayer funding of abortion when he spent years of his career promoting the Hyde Amendment is “just the latest example of Democratic extremism on abortion.”

“Long gone are the days of ‘safe, legal, and rare,’” she said.

March for Life Action tweeted a timeline of Biden’s “evolution” on the Hyde Amendment:

Maureen Malloy Ferguson, senior fellow for The Catholic Association, called Biden’s flip-flop “just the beginning of the Candidate Biden vs. Senator Biden abortion debate.”

She explained:

Does he stand by his Senate vote to ban late-term partial birth abortions, given his party’s efforts in New York, Illinois, and Virginia to allow abortion until birth? Next, he will need to reconcile his criticism of states that have passed laws protecting unborn children, with his “yes” vote on the partial-birth abortion ban (which had only a life of the mother exception and criminal penalties for abortion doctors who perform them), and address questions about state abortion-until-birth laws.

Ferguson said Biden and other Democrats who are supporting abortion without any limits are committing “political malpractice.”

“It is sad to watch Joe Biden, who dared express a scintilla of conscience on the issue, utterly cave in to this demand,” she added.

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