CNN’s Jake Tapper called out President Joe Biden’s ever-changing position on the issue of abortion.
In an interview that aired Sunday with Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu, Tapper questioned whether Biden’s shifting stance on abortion over his political career will be harmful to his campaign.
Tapper characterized Biden’s position on abortion as “all over the map” and asked whether it undermines support from him from pro-choice advocates.
“Do you think his own long, complicated history on this issue — do you think it muddies his message, and undermines the contrast with Donald Trump?” Tapper asked.
Landrieu at first criticized how Trump has handled the abortion issue, but then explained how Biden’s pro-choice stance is stronger than ever.
“Since his presidency, he has been very strong in his support of a very simple notion: that he trusts women to make decisions about their reproductive health,” Landrieu said.
To Tapper’s point, Biden’s position on abortion has been inconsistent throughout his career.
In 1974, then freshman Senator Biden said that he didn’t like the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.
“I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body,” the Washingtonian reported in 1974.
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In 2006, Biden called himself “the odd man out” in the Democratic Paty on the abortion issue, according to CNN.
“I do not view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it’s always a tragedy, and I think that it should be rare and safe, and I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions.’ Biden said.
Just this year, Biden said that he’s “never been supportive of, you know, ‘It’s my body, I can do what I want with it,” the New Yorker reported.
Yet, since his inauguration in 2021, Biden has been anything but a sideline spectator on the issue.
In July 2022, just a few weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Biden signed an executive order aimed at protecting access to abortion services.
CNN reported that the “executive order attempts to safeguard access to medication abortion and emergency contraception, protect patient privacy, launch public education efforts as well as bolster the security of and the legal options available to those seeking and providing abortion services.”
In June 2023, Biden denounced abortion restrictions in Republican-governed states, arguing that the states were depriving women of “basic health care,” according to the New York Times.
“In his 50+ years in politics … Biden has been all over the map on abortion,” says CNN’s Jake Tapper.
— “In ’74, he said Roe v. Wade went too far, and that a woman should not have ‘the sole right to say what should happen to her body.’”
— “In 2006, he said, ‘I do not view… pic.twitter.com/uad5XSziwI
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 5, 2024
Just this year, in his State of the Union address, Biden said, “if you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again,” Huffpost reported.
It seems like Biden’s position on abortion corresponds to that of his base. Instead of having an independent opinion based on what he believes, he’s believing what he thinks will get him elected.
Tapper is right to bring up Biden’s tepidity on the issue. There is perhaps no issue that Biden has flipped back and forth over in his career more than abortion.
What Biden represents is an opinion that is often held on the left, particularly among left-leaning legal scholars: the idea that codified laws are living, constantly evolving instruments.
It’s in stark contrast to the position taken by the mainstream right, who take an originalist perspective on laws. They argue, according to the National Constitution Center, that laws should be interpreted with the understanding of those who wrote them, not those who are reading them.
The idea of the left is that the U.S. Constitution should change over time to accommodate how society’s view on key issues changes. This all happens without any sort of formal amendment process, and is instead implemented by enlightened members of the judiciary.
As many people are aware, the Constitution makes no mention of abortion in its text. Rather, the theory of the “living constitution” was utilized by the Supreme Court to permit them to bring the Constitution into the modern age.
David Strauss, a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, defined a living constitution as “one that evolves, changes over time, and adapts to new circumstances, without being formally amended.”
This idea that the Constitution can change over time and adapt to new circumstances has been the foundation of Supreme Court decisions that have written rights into the Constitution based on what the Court wants it to say.
This philosophy is concerning, to say the least.
For the left and “living constitutionalists,” no constitutional right is safe. To them, the government is the arbiter of what rights should and should not be guaranteed.
To them, the law is subject to their will. If a provision of the law is disharmonious with their will, they will simply change it.
The core issue with that philosophy is, at the end of the day, the letter of the law means nothing more than what judges think it ought to mean, irrespective of what it says.
That’s why overturning Roe v. Wade was the correct jurisprudential decision, even if it was not popular. Nothing in the Constitution guarantees anyone the right to have an abortion.
The Constitution was founded on the principle that there are some rights so sacred, so worth protecting, that citizens can only be deprived of them when afforded due process.
And no right is greater than that of the right to life. Unlike the left, many on the right believe that rights come from God, not government, and that they cannot be changed just because some judges feel like they should.
That’s why conservatives have so consistently opposed abortion. Sure, you can deprive someone of life with due process. But how can you give a baby in the womb due process?
The left and right can, and do, disagree on many issues. From immigration and taxes to welfare and energy, all of these debates have their place.
But when it comes to abortion, and the deprivation of the right to life, this is something that we really should all be able to agree on. After all, if we don’t protect the right to life of innocent children, what is worth protecting?
Does any other issue matter if we can kill our most vulnerable citizens?
