OPINION: Biden can run, but he can’t Hyde: His reversal on an abortion question is a bad sign

Jun. 11--On one day last week, Joe Biden reaffirmed his support for the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the federal funding of most abortions. A day later, Biden reversed himself, giving as a reason the recent spate of draconian anti-abortion laws enacted in several states. Surely, however, Biden was pushed by Democratic Party activists. At this rate, he'll be a socialist by Labor Day.

Biden had been a longtime supporter of Hyde, named for the late Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican of delightful ideological inconsistency. (He favored gun control, for instance.) Biden had stuck with the Hyde Amendment, first passed in 1976, even though much of the Democratic Party has become deeply opposed to it. He had to know, going into the campaign, that this sentiment had only hardened.

I am ardently pro-choice and have long been opposed to the Hyde Amendment, but I am less than thrilled at Biden's sudden conversion. It reeks of insincerity, of a decision made simply for political reasons. He was under intense pressure from the party's liberal wing, particularly the suddenly accelerating Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose authenticity is not in doubt.

He also heard from the actress Alyssa Milano. She called Biden's campaign manager, urging Biden to reconsider his support of Hyde.

Others made points of heroic banality. The Atlantic's Edward-Isaac Dovere reported last week that one of Biden's senior advisers, Symone Sanders, confronted him about how his pro-Hyde position "disproportionally affected poor women and women of color without easy access to abortion." Biden apparently had not previously known this, his 36 years in the Senate and eight as vice president notwithstanding. With a slap to the forehead that would have felled a lesser man, he must have uttered a "zowie!" and realized the error of his ways. Thank you, Symone Sanders.

Abortion is a morally complex issue. A lot depends on the circumstances -- how far along the pregnancy may be, etc. For some, though, abortion is simply murder. For others, opposition to abortion is misogyny masked as morality. I always put Biden, who in a 2007 book wrote that he is "personally opposed to abortion," in the "religion" category -- a Roman Catholic with views to match. In that case, his reluctance to have anti-abortion taxpayers fund abortions is understandable.

It's troubling that Biden should so easily abandon what, until the other day, seemed a deeply held position. It is also troubling that a major element of the Democratic Party is so intolerant of an opposing idea that it would doom a candidacy on that basis alone. This lockstep abortion platform seeks to impose a simplistic position on a morally vexing issue and is reminiscent of 1992, when at the Democratic National Convention the party denied a pro-life Democrat, Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, a speaking slot.

Most Democrats are pro-choice and most Republicans are not, but both parties contain significant minorities of dissenters. Uniformity is nice, but not when it is coerced.

At the moment, Hyde is a huge irrelevancy. The Republican Senate is not going to do without it. And, if by some miracle it did, King Kong Trump would stomp all over the effort. The pressing issue of the moment is not Hyde, but the severe anti-abortion legislation being passed in state after state.

By reversing his position on Hyde, Biden has revived memories of politicians past who did a neat about-face on a matter of principle. Hillary Clinton and her reversal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes to mind -- a back flip off a very high board that ended in a belly flop.

This will be an arduous and painful campaign for Biden if he is willing to betray his beliefs. Soon enough, it will be bitterly cold in Iowa -- and he will be ideologically naked to the world, not the man he used to be and not, either, the man he wants to be.

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