Biden campaign says talking abortion restrictions is Republican ‘trap’
Asking President Biden whether he supports any restrictions on abortion is falling for a Republican “trap,” his re-election campaign has charged as the incumbent visited Florida for two campaign events Tuesday.
The 81-year-old Biden is America’s second-ever Roman Catholic president, but has repeatedly called on voters to elect a Democratic House and Senate that will codify the right to an abortion nationwide since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
That stance is a change from Biden’s opposition to Roe early in his decades-long tenure in federal office.
During a press call, a reporter pressed Biden campaign representatives “whether there’s a cutoff for his support of abortion.
“Is it still fetal viability [typically 24 weeks]?” the reporter added.
“The president believes that we should restore the protections of Roe, he’s been pretty clear, pretty consistent in that,” a spokesperson responded.
“So we aren’t going to fall on any traps that Republicans may want to lay because that’s so far from reality.”
Biden has previously said he does support some limits on the controversial procedure.
In October 2022, he was asked by a reporter if there should be “any restrictions on abortion at all.”
“Yes, there should be,” Biden said, before adding, “Roe v. Wade, read it, man. You’ll get educated.”
Roe v. Wade overrode many state laws that had prohibited abortion, mandating that they could not ban the procedure before fetal viability — around 24 weeks of pregnancy. The ruling did allow states to begin imposing regulations in the second trimester and ban abortions completely in the third.
Since the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe, some states have reinstituted former laws that restrict the procedure even further.
Recently, Arizona’s Supreme Court restored an 1864 law that barred abortions with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
The Biden campaign has tried to make abortion a top issue, stressing that Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the court during his presidency.
Trump himself has crowed about his role in overturning Roe, and has said decisions on abortion regulations should be left up to individual states. However, the 45th president did say the Arizona law went “too far” with its ban.
At his first campaign stop in Tampa Tuesday, Biden attacked Trump for his role in reversing Roe — repeatedly saying the 45th president made a “deal” with evangelical Republicans for their support at the polls.
Trump “described the Dobbs decision as a ‘miracle.’ Maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell,” Biden joked at one point.
“I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell was in it.”
