Joe Biden still supports controversial abortion rule, campaign confirms

Former VP causes confusion on the campaign trail with stance on decades-old abortion restrictions

Joe Biden still supports a decades-old ban on using federal funds for most abortion services, his campaign has confirmed.

The clarification arrived after American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) shared a video last month of one of the nonprofit group’s volunteers asking the former vice president whether he’d commit to abolishing the amendment.

Mr Biden can be seen telling the volunteer “yes,” and that he has a “near perfect voting record” with the ACLU throughout his political career, before adding that the Hyde Amendment “can’t stay.”

The group appeared to celebrate Mr Biden’s comments — before his campaign later told media outlets he had misheard the ACLU volunteer.

Mr Biden reportedly believed she was instead asking about the “Mexico City rule,” which bans federal funds from being used by international organisations providing abortion services.

However, the former vice president has said he would support overturning the amendment should abortion access protected by Roe v Wade come under threat.

Critics of the amendment say it discriminates against lower-income communities and people of colour who may otherwise not be able to pay for abortion services.

“There’s no political or ideological excuse for Joe Biden’s support for the Hyde Amendment, which translates into discrimination against poor women and women of colour plain and simple,” Ilyse Hogue, president of the nonprofit group NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Differentiating himself from the field this way will not earn Joe Biden any political points,” she added, “and will bring harm to women who are already most vulnerable.”

Planned Parenthood also rejected Mr Biden’s support for the amendment, writing in a statement to NBC News, “The unfair Hyde Amendment makes it so that those who have the least end up having to pay the most to access abortion, and those who are service members or live on reservations are often left with no coverage for abortion care.”

The ban on federal funds being used to provide abortion services has become increasingly controversial throughout the 2020 elections, as a wave of Democratic presidential hopefuls express their opposition to the amendment.

All of the female senators running for the White House have co-sponsored a bill to abolish the ban, including Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren. Many other candidates have also called for the amendment to be overturned, including Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke.

The issue of reproductive rights has become an increasingly important topics among Democrats along the campaign trail amid a wave of conservative bans on abortions nationwide. States like Alabama have passed bills so restrictive that most women will be banned from receiving an abortion before they are even aware of their pregnancy.

Mr Biden has frequently called the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision the “law of the land” despite his personal religious opposition to abortion, and bowed to “push” for legislation in recent weeks that would legalise the procedure on the federal level.