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Biden reaffirms support for abortion on anniversary of Roe v. Wade

Christine Rousselle   By Christine Rousselle for CNA

Pope Francis meets President Joe Biden on Oct. 29, 2021. / Vatican Media/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 22, 2022 / 10:40 am (CNA).

President Joe Biden pledged to defend a so-called right to abortion and reaffirmed his commitment to the widespread availability of the procedure in a Jan. 22 statement marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

“The constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade nearly 50 years ago today is under assault as never before,” reads the statement, which was co-signed by Vice President Kamala Harris. “It is a right we believe should be codified into law, and we pledge to defend it with every tool we possess.”

“We are deeply committed to protecting access to health care, including reproductive health care—and to ensuring that this country is not pushed backwards on women’s equality,” the statement continues.

The statement was released one day after tens of thousands of pro-life advocates gathered in Washington for the annual March for Life.

Biden and Harris condemned efforts by pro-life lawmakers to enact restrictions on abortion, saying that “in Texas, Mississippi, and many other states around the country, access to reproductive health care is under attack.”

“These state restrictions constrain the freedom of all women,” they wrote, adding that such restrictions are “particularly devastating for those who have fewer options and fewer resources, such as those in underserved communities, including communities of color and many in rural areas.”

In addition to support of codifying a right to an abortion throughout the entirety of a pregnancy, Biden and Harris wrote that they will “continue to work with Congress on the Women’s Health Protection Act.”

The Women’s Health Protection Act would establish “a statutory right for health care professionals to provide abortion and the right for their patients to receive care, free from medically unnecessary restrictions that single out abortion care.”

If passed, the bill would also eliminate requirements including mandatory waiting periods and ultrasounds before the procedure can be performed.

Biden and Harris wrote that it is important to “ensure that our daughters and granddaughters have the same fundamental rights that their mothers and grandmothers fought for and won on this day, 49 years ago.”

“At this pivotal moment, we recommit to strengthening access to critical reproductive health care, defending the constitutional right established by Roe, and protecting the freedom of all people to build their own future,” the statement reads.

Biden is the second Catholic president and the first to be elected since Roe v. Wade. In an interview with The Washingtonian when Roe was issued, Biden said he was more moderate on many social issues, including abortion.

“But when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother,” Biden said at the time. “I don’t like the Supreme Court 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.”

While in the Senate, Biden repeatedly voted for legislation that would prevent the taxpayer funding of abortion. However, his views on abortion began to shift over time.

By his last year in the Senate prior to becoming vice president, Biden received a zero rating by the National Right to Life Committee. The last time Biden received a score above zero from the pro-life committee was in 2003-2004.

“There’s no surprise here,” said Mercedes Schlapp, former strategic communications director for the Trump administration, in a Jan. 21 interview with EWTN’s Owen Jensen. “We knew he was going to be radical on abortion. We knew he was going to support abortion— late term abortions. We know he’s obsessed and [the Democratic] party is obsessed with codifying Roe v. Wade.”

“As Catholics, we need to be vocal,” she continued. “We need to stand strong and we need to tell the president this is not right. We need to defend the unborn.”


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21 Comments

  1. It has been one year since Biden was inaugurated. He continues to call himself a devout Catholic and receive Holy Communion whenever he wants. It is an ongoing scandal that discredits the Church hierarchy from Francis on down. What has become of the (watered-down) Eucharistic Coherence Statement anyway? It is collecting dust on the shelf.

  2. This pitiful excuse of a Catholic fails to manifest the life of Christ. Such a sorry soul deserves lots of prayer; the sin of murder cries out to God from the earth. Neither fossil fuels nor Trump are the cause of Joe’s and America’s problems. Murder is.

  3. Bergoglio, Cupich, Tobin, Gregory, McElroy, Stowe and a pack of other hirelings should be hanging their heads in shame. So where is Biden’s “seamless garment” of life, bishops, now that your “man of character,” the “one you can talk with” is determined to codify murder as a fundamental right?

  4. Biden is a “trans-Catholic”, i.e a person who self-identifies as a Catholic without actually meeting the objective criteria to qualify as one.

  5. How much more proof does the American Catholic hierarchy require that Biden must be excommunicated? The American bishops’ collective failure to do this while issuing vapid and toothless documents on “Eucharistic coherence” leaves each and all of them with the blood of the murdered innocents on their hands and their heads. It has reached the point where the question must be asked whether the American bishops are themselves Catholics.

  6. 1) When referring to Biden’s professed ‘faith’ it would be appreciated if you would not capitalize it.

    2) It is worth our while to point out again – and again and again – that ALL of its most fervent adherents REFUSE whenever possible to use that ugliest, most foul of words –

    Abortion

    Say it again

    Abortion

  7. If Catholics had voted the Church’s teaching on abortion even once during the past half century, killing babies would be the third rail of American politics. Untouchable.

    Any candidate pursuing supporting abortion would have no hope of winning and would be summarily bounced from public life.

    American Catholics, take warning: By ignoring your Church’s most fundamental teachings and voting for Democrats, you have assumed primary responsibility for this monstrous holocaust, the like of which humanity has never seen before.

  8. I am waiting to hear the strong words of condemnation about this from the bishops – such as, this is “unfortunate”, “problematic”, “hurtful”, etc. These strong words would be uttered prior to giving him communion.

  9. Cackles and Chairman Joe support a “right” that is not in the Constitution, while denying the unborn a right that IS in the Constitution — LIFE, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Roe was wrongly decided and gave women a “right” to murder their babies. It’s not a right. It’s a horrible wrong.

  10. Canon 915 forbids Biden from Holy Communion. His bishops fail to enforce it. We can only speculate as to why they’re refusing to perform this obligation.

  11. Joe Biden, along with every other First World nation, unapologitically and wholeheartedly support abortion. To subsidise this, they also support unlimited immigration or our populations would decline.
    It is truly a bargain with the devil.

  12. Pope Francis meets President Joe Biden on Oct. 29, 2021. / Vatican Media/CNA
    That photo! VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED HOLD YOUR BREAKFAST!

    Where’s the catechesis, the SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD? HUH?

  13. If the Bishops lacked the courage to make a public statement about Biden and his abortion stance, they were free to approach him privately and say he may not go to Communion until there was a change in his public statements. Ditto, the Pope could have met with Biden, as he is the Head of the USA, a position of tremendous power. They could even have just met privately, sans public media. But he didn’t have to seem so happy and glad to do so. Facial expressions say a great deal, as does silence. Words, and a very public statement, are not always necessary to get the mission accomplished.

  14. We overlook the historic and multicultural tradition now “affirmed” by our very own Joe Biden…

    …the Roman emperor Caligula credited for his cruelty, perversions, and such; the Turko-Mongolian Tamerlane, credited with erecting towers of human heads to mark his passing (but probably only 42,000 heads in all); the Aztec Montezuma, from a long line of indigenous emperor-surgeons famous for involuntary open-heart surgeries (in the tens of thousands); and the notoriously “bloodthirsty” Sultan Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif from the world of Islam in Morocco…

    Now to the New World: since 1973 some 62 million and counting…whom under the sleepy-eyed and weather-vane Biden, and Aztec princess Pelosi (the “sacred ground” of late-term and post-birth abortions) would be codified into Federal Law, and then federally funded by compulsion from a national taxpayer populace.

    So, a multicultural and sobering thingy—but that’s dead-on-arrival in Congress, except as an election bullet-point to be parroted by complicit media talking heads seeking prime-time market share.

  15. Nothing good comes supeficial piety and a complete lack of fear of God. Maybe it’s intuition based on my reading of human history, devoid of divine revelation; but I can see how this man is leading this entire nation into complete corruption and ultimate doom.

  16. By the obvious throwing his support to Biden, Bergoglio, as pictured above, is implicitly supporting the killing of babies. Would Pius XII have allowed himself to be pictured with Hitler knowing full well that Hitler was, at the same time, authorizing the execution of Jews just because they were Jews?

  17. 52 years ago. {1968} Way back in the mists of time.A little band called the Rolling Stones sang a song called “Sympathy for the Devil”. As the above photo illustrates our current Pope has NO problem shaking and patting the hand of the Devil.All while smiling
    happily, and passing on his words of Sympathy. Even the blonde lady witness to this defilement smiles agreeably.The only one NOT smiling? Christ hanging on the wall behind all three of these good friends.

  18. Luke 16:10 –

    He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

  19. “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.” I Corinthians 11.27-29.

    The leaders of every world religion ought to be schooled in the most up-to-date research concerning the methods of natural birth control. There are videos presented on the Internet that Cycle Technologies, in coordination with the Georgetown University Institute for Reproductive Health, has made available for any cleric or lay person to view. (Including political leaders.) These methods include the Standard Days — CycleBeads, and TwoDay methods.

    Aborting late-term babies (or any baby) because women are ignorant of the total range of options at their disposal is the perpetuation of mankind’s most grievous fallen nature. The bishops (“overseers”) of the Catholic Church need to re-think their approach, and turn to more intense education of these natural birth control strategies.

  20. 18 months later we have that disgusting picture, which begs the question – what more need be said?

    Joe, you of the Rosary in your pocket, I have a question – what is the 4th Luminous mystery?

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