In the first presidential forum on reproductive rights in recent memory, former vice-president Joe Biden told an audience of mostly female Planned Parenthood supporters he had a “100% voting record” on reproductive rights.

In fact, his record on the subject is mixed, as a question to the former vice-president suggested.
“Well, first of all, I’m not sure about the mixed record part. I’ve had 100% voting record,” Biden said, before his microphone cut out. When it came back on, he had moved on to healthcare.

Biden, a Catholic and a Delaware senator for 36 years, has gone back and forth on support for abortion access. In this election cycle, reproductive rights has emerged as a top issue as Republican statehouses across the US have attacked abortion rights.

Biden told his audience in Columbia he would codify the right to an abortion, granted in Roe v Wade, into law “as defined by Casey” – a stance more conservative than those of many other Democratic candidates present.

Casey is the 1992 supreme court decision which allowed states to severely restrict abortion access, including imposing waiting periods and medically unnecessary administrative burdens.

Casey is the 1992 supreme court decision which allowed states to severely restrict abortion access, including imposing waiting periods and medically unnecessary administrative burdens.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, your thoughts?

TA-NEHISI COATES: I mean, it’s just more of the same. It’s just more of the same. I mean, you know, Joe Biden says he’s been—

AMY GOODMAN: Should Biden apologize?

TA-NEHISI COATES: I don’t—I mean, Joe Biden shouldn’t be president. You know? You know, obviously, I don’t think I’m breaking any news here. You know, if he ends up being the nominee, better him than Trump, but I think that’s a really, really low standard.

I think when you have somebody who is celebrating their relationship, the ability of a person who saw no problem depriving an entire population of African Americans in their state of the right to vote, the right to participate as American citizens, the fact that that person was polite to them? I mean, it’s nice that Eastland never called, or Talmadge, whoever it was—never called Joe Biden “boy.” It’s nice that Joe Biden had that privilege. But the fact of the matter is, Joe Biden owes his very presence in the race, right now, to the first black president, to Barack Obama. And if it were up to Eastland, and if it were up to Talmadge, Barack Obama would not only not be in the White House, he actually would not exist.

And so, I don’t know what is going on in your brain where you decide to celebrate the fact these people were polite. They could afford to be polite, because the major opposition in their state, that being African Americans, was effectively, at that time, in their time, through most of their career, wiped out of the political process and erased as an electorate.

You know, Joe Biden says that he’s been involved with civil rights his entire career. It’s worth remembering Joe Biden opposed busing and bragged about it, you know, in the 1970s. Joe Biden is on the record as being to the right of actually the New Democrats in the 1990s on the issue of mass incarceration, wanted more people sentenced to the death penalty, wanted more jails. And so, you know, I’m not surprised. I mean, this is who Joe Biden is. You know there’s that saying: When somebody shows you who they are, believe them. This is who Joe Biden is.

Star Member Hortensis (31,143 posts)

27. For trumpsters. We're both smarter and far more honest.

And shame on those who try to blast that illusion.