Biden has ‘developed’ approach to abortion, Sister Simone Campbell says

By Kate Scanlon for CNA

Joe Biden in Philadelphia, June, 2020 Credit: Christos S / Shutterstock

Washington D.C., Jan 25, 2021 / 10:35 am (CNA).- President Joe Biden has a “very developed approach” to abortion, Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, said during a recent panel discussion hosted by the National Catholic Reporter.

Campbell, who also offered a prayer at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, said at the Jan. 21 discussion that the “political obsession” with the “criminialization of abortion” has broken the Church apart.

Campbell said she hopes someone interviews Biden “about what he thinks” on the issue.

“He has a very–I know from a conversation with him–he has a very developed approach to it [abortion],” Campbell said. “And for him, it hinges on religious liberty, and that he will not force his religious belief on the whole nation.”

She added that many conservatives are concerned over religious freedom, and implied that Biden’s “religious liberty” case for legal abortion could serve as a bridge to those citizens.

“And the far-right is glomming onto this religious liberty argument,” she added. “Maybe there’s a way forward there, where we could find some understanding. So that would be my hope.”

Montserrat Alvarado, vice president and executive director of Becket, told CNA that Biden’s treatment of the Little Sisters of the Poor will reveal how serious he is on respecting religious freedom.

“The litmus test for whether President Biden is taking the intersection of abortion and religious liberty seriously is how he treats the Little Sisters of the Poor,” Alvarado told CNA.

“He will either give them an exemption or he will fight them in court, knowing full well that an exemption is the protection our laws and the Supreme Court have given Catholic nuns in this country,” Alvarado said. “We should know soon.”

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden said he would remove religious exemptions to the HHS contraceptive mandate that were granted by the Trump administration to objecting religious groups, including the Little Sisters of the Poor. If Biden follows through on that promise, it is expected that the sisters would once again have to return to court to push for a religious exemption.

Biden also supported taxpayer-funded abortion during his presidential campaign, pledging to reverse various prohibitions on federal funding of abortions, abortion providers, and groups promoting abortion. These policies include the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy, and the Protect Life Rule. The Biden administration is expected to repeal the Mexico City Policy later this week.

Campbell offered a prayer at the Democratic National Convention last year. Asked by CNA in August whether or not her social justice organization opposes legal abortion, Campbell replied, “That is not our issue. That is not it. It is above my pay grade.”

“It’s not the issue that we work on. I’m a lawyer. I would have to study it more intensely than I have,” Campbell said at the time.


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6 Comments

  1. Sister S. Campbells S.S.S. has continued her veiled comments relative to the moral(not political) issue of taxpayer funding of Abortion. President Biden has continued his forceful efforts to require public funding and support of rampant abortion efforts. He mistakenly feels the vast majority of citizens support his effort, He is incorrect and regardless, the moral and Constitutional conflict is a matter of good and evil; not a numerical poll! Sisters of Social Service have been harmed irreparably by Sr. Campbell’s involvement!

  2. Sinister Campbell announces: ““He [Biden] has a very–I know [!!!] from a conversation with him–he has a very developed approach to it [abortion]; and for him, it hinges on religious liberty, and that he will not force his religious belief on the whole nation.”

    “Developed,” as in disinterred (?) from the identical and 36-year-old rhetorical invention of former New York Governor Cuomo, himself lip syncing back a full 60 years to President Kennedy in 1960. Campbell and her tribe are cerebral necromaniacs…

    Not at all “developed” or new is the disinterred Big Lie as already in the words of Cuomo who (like Kennedy) could not see the difference between the universal natural law and any added defense that still might be offered by, say, one church or another or by reason (!) alone. To defend the truth about humanity, Cuomo argued (in 1984), would be to impose his Church’s morality on all of society and would constitute a sectarian “Catholic theocracy.”

    Thus commeth in full disguise the “Biden theocracy,” aided and abetted by the amnesiac or lobotomized Campbells (read Camp followers) of this world.

    Instead, this clarity from what is also forgotten by our “new paradigm”, ecclesial “throwaway culture:” Pope St. John Paul II: “the Church is in no way the author or the arbiter of this [moral] norm . . . [she] proposes it to all people of good will. . . .” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 95, 1993).

  3. ‘Developed ‘ – ? from the ‘seeds of the devil’ as the Holy Father has warned a while ago as to how self pity and its sadness can be like the seeds of the devil..

    good articles from other Christians on same topic and not to expect God to show up for the related pity party ..

    Those who promote same , are they in turn asking for persons to make decisions based on such attitudes , which , in turn can be like the leaven that can take over whole batch of dough and we already see laws that promote such attitudes being enacted ..

    Thank God that we live in times that reveals to us more explicitly how loving and thanking God is not just a past time to be chosen when it suits us.. how every life is His Will ,is to be lived in praise and gratitude , for the Gift of Life , in Him, with all ..

    The so called ‘choice ‘ to sow the seeds of the devil and to make decisions based on same – God help us to discern what we are truly asking for as did the ‘riff
    raff ‘ among the Israelites who had the self pity of not having meat , even though they had what they needed and more – God’s Presence , each other ..yet ,instead , craving for the ‘meat ‘ of Egypt , of the cruelty and slavery and God using such an occasion to warn us – in condoning similar attitudes , instead of the love and gratitude we owe to The Spirit as The Life Giver ..

    https://bookofheaven.org/book-of-praying-the-round/book-of-the-round-ordinary-time-2/

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