, Columnist
Biden’s Flip on Abortion Funding Hurts Him and His Party
It weakens his claim to be electable, just for starters.
Not a good look.
Photographer: Dustin Chambers/Getty Images
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Maybe Joe Biden had to flip on the question of taxpayer funding for abortion in order to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
All of his rivals supported that funding, and the party has become more and more aggressive on abortion. Where the 1990s Democratic platforms said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” the 2016 platform dropped that defensive note and included an explicit call to end the longstanding ban on using federal Medicaid funds for elective abortions.