With Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders officially ending his presidential campaign Wednesday, former Vice President Joe Biden is now the apparent Democratic nominee to challenge Donald Trump this fall.
Biden ran through the primary on a platform of moderate pragmatism to counter the left-wing forces guiding the Democratic Party through a turbulent primary, with Sanders at one point eclipsing Biden as the frontrunner throughout February until Biden’s great political comeback with a South Carolina victory by the end of the month.
Yet Biden is no moderate, particularly on abortion. Democrats made it pretty clear throughout the primary that none of the candidates were anywhere close to moderate on this issue anyway. It was nearly a scandal when during one of the Democratic debates Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard quipped a phrase from former President Bill Clinton from the 1990s arguing that abortion ought to be “safe, legal, and rare” and declared that late-term abortion should be banned. Other Democrats balked at the idea that there can be any room for pro-life Democrats in the party.
Biden has been no exception on the Democratic Party’s lurch to the left on the hot-button issue of abortion, despite being far out of the mainstream of public opinion. While Biden pledges a litmus test on abortion for Supreme Court nominees and promises open access to abortion, 77 percent of American women believe in restricting abortion to a baby’s first 12 weeks in the womb. Fifty-nine percent believe abortion is morally wrong, and 61 percent are against taxpayer dollars funding these operations, according to Marist polling.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement Wednesday that the nationwide group’s canvassing team will reach voters across the country concentrated in battleground states to inform voters of Biden’s stance on abortion.
“Biden, who now favors forcing taxpayers to pay for abortion on demand through birth – a significant liability with the majority of Americans, even within his own party – represents the total capitulation of the Democratic Party leadership to the radical abortion lobby,” Dannenfelser said. “This is a moment of rare clarity, when life will be the defining issue in the most consequential election of our time for unborn children and their mothers.”
Polling from the Susan B. Anthony list released last summer found that 50 percent of voters reported being less likely to vote for Biden upon learning of his support for taxpayer-funded abortion. Fifty-percent of independent voters said the same.
