During Sunday night's Democratic presidential primary debate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders challenged former Vice-President Joe Biden on his record in support of the Hyde Amendment, after which Biden confirmed that his stance on the public funding of abortion has shifted completely since his time in the senate.“Right now, a woman’s right to control her own body is under massive assault, unprecedented assault,” Sanders said, to which Biden agreed.
“Joe, you have in the past on more than one occasion, voted for the Hyde Amendment,” Bernie continued, “which says that a woman, low-income woman, could not use Medicaid funding for an abortion. Is that still your view or have you modified it?”
Biden responded that this was “not my view,” and further downplayed his earlier support of the Hyde Amendment as if being associated with it was poisonous to his candidacy by saying “by the way, everybody who’s been in the Congress voted for the Hyde Amendment at one point or another, because it was locked in other bills.”
Biden further elaborated on his position: “if we’re going to have public funding for all healthcare along the line, there is no way you could allow for there to be a requirement that you have Hyde Amendment.”
Later in the debate, Biden even copied one of Sanders's campaign promises by saying that he would “send immediately to the desk of the United States Congress (...), a codification of Roe v Wade amended by Casey. Because I think it is a woman’s right to choose. I think it’s a woman’s opportunity to be able to make that decision.”
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