Bernie Sanders insists his record is 'literally 100 per cent pro-choice' as he struggles to explain voting FOR budgets that included ban on federal funding for abortions
- Joe Biden, a Catholic, had said he supports a section of law that blocks the federal government from funding abortions, with rare exceptions
- After Democratic rivals complained, he walked back that decades-long position on Thursday
- But at least nine of them have voted FOR the measure as part of congressional budget bills that included it
- Bernie Sanders, who is running in second place to Biden, was left to explain his position in a Tv interview Sunday
- He insisted his record is 'literally 100 per cent pro-choice' despite casting votes for a budget that included the controversial 'Hyde Amendment'
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders insisted Sunday that his record in Congress is 'literally 100 per cent pro-choice,' despite voting to pass budgets that include controversial anti-abortion language that drove Democratic front-runner Joe Biden into a high-profile flip-flop this week.
Biden, a Roman Catholic, came under spirited attack from White House rivals on Wednesday after his campaign confirmed that he supported the so-called 'Hyde Amendment,' which nearly everyone else in his party wants to toss on history's scrap-heap.
Biden walked his decades-long position back a day later during a fundraising speech in Atlanta.
But at least nine of his Democratic rivals for the presidential nomination, including Sanders, have voted to pass bills containing the same language, which has become an annual feature of federal budget bills.
Challenged during a CNN 'State of the Union' interview on Sunday, Sanders insisted he shouldn't be held responsible.
'Well, look, sometimes in a large bill you have to vote for things you don't like,' he said. 'But I think my record as being literally 100 per cent pro-choice is absolutely correct.'
Bernie Sanders struggled to explain on Sunday why he has voted for federal budgets that included bans on funding abortions
Joe Biden dropped his decades-long support for the 'Hyde Amendment' this week after his Democratic rivals attacked him for embracing a pro-life position
Abortion rights has become a non-negotiable position for Democrats running for president as the party trends more toward left-wing policy
Sanders said he believes 'that a woman's right to control her own body is a constitutional right ... that must apply to all women, including low income women.'
The 1976 Hyde Amendment, named for the late Illinois Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, was among the first major federal legislative victories for the American pro-life movement after the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision legalized the practice.
It prohibited the use of Health and Human Services Department funding, including Medicaid money that funds health care for women in poverty, to pay for abortions.
Sanders complained bitterly on Sunday about 'outrageous attacks' on abortion rights passed into law in conservatives states like Alabama, Georgia and Missouri, part of a strategy 'to overturn Roe v. Wade.'
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Sanders insisted Sunday that his revcord is '100 per cent' pro-choice
Sanders resisted the opportunity to bash Biden for onlly recently adopting the Democratic Party's orthodoxy on the Hyde Amendment, even though the former vice president is leading in every poll including a new measure of Iowa caucus-goers released Saturday.
'That's the poll of today,' he shrugged.
'Last I heard the election was eight months from today, when the first ballots are going to be cast in Iowa,' he said.
All 24 Democrats in the 2020 race are on record supporting Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that created a legal right to abortion across the nation.
But for Biden, who is Catholic, it has been complicated. During his years in the U.S. Senate he expressed his personal opposition to abortion and repeatedly voted against federal funding of the procedure.
Abortion remains a hidden but ever-present political faultline in America as defenders of the practice mark 46 years of legal protection under the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling
In 1994 during negotiations over health care, he wrote a constituent in Delaware that 'those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.'
It wasn't until 2016 that Democrats called for an end to the Hyde amendment in their party platform. The Republican-led House of Representatives passed a bill in 2017 that would have made the measure permanent, but it failed in the Senate.
The related pile-on by Biden's rivals in the 2020 race for the party's nomination has been the clearest collective push-back against him since he entered the contest in April.
It highlighted the fault lines in a sensitive debate of the hot-button abortion issue in the run up to next year's elections between a Democratic nominee and President Donald Trump.
Sanders, who is running second to Biden in every national poll, tweeted this week: 'There is #NoMiddleGround on women's rights. Abortion is a constitutional right. Under my Medicare for All plan, we will repeal the Hyde Amendment.'
What is the Hyde Amendment?
The Hyde Amendment is a federal legislative provision barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, except to save the life of the mother, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape.
The original Hyde Amendment was passed into law in 1976, three years after Roe v Wade, and must be renewed each year as part of the appropriations bill that funds the Department of Health & Human Services.
The legislation is named for Henry Hyde, the conservative Republican congressman from Illinois who first proposed it. It has historically enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress and is routinely passed each year.
The late Republican congressman Henry Hyde wrote his namesake legislation in 1976
Anti-abortion groups argue that the Hyde Amendment is a critical protection for Americans' freedom of conscience.
'The Hyde Amendment has been a unique compromise by Americans on all sides of the abortion debate, declaring that because abortion is so controversial, our federal tax dollars should not be used to end unborn lives,' says the conservative American Center for Law and Justice.
Pro-abortion activists argue that the Hyde Amendment penalizes low-income women by denying them subsidized abortions covered by Medicaid.
'The Hyde Amendment is a dangerous and unfair policy that lets politicians interfere in a woman’s personal health care decisions,' says Planned Parenthood.
