Biden stumbles over abortion rights while Warren receives cheers [View all]

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/22/joe-biden-abortion-reproductive-rights-democrats-elizabeth-warren

Biden stumbles over abortion rights while Warren receives cheers

Jessica Glenza in Columbia, South Carolina

Sat 22 Jun 2019 21.07 BST

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.
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“We’ve been on defense for 47 years, and it’s not working,” said the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. “An inch at a time, a piece at a time, they’ve chipped away, hacked away at the ground under our feet, so access becomes narrower, becomes more limited.

She went on: “This is a democracy. In a democracy, the laws should reflect the values of the people. So I say it is time to go on offense with Roe v Wade. It’s not enough to say we’re going to rely on the courts. We need to pass a federal law to make Roe v Wade the rule of the land.”

That prompted huge cheers.

She continued: “We can add and say: no more of this semi-repeal of Roe, another bite out of Roe, an undercut of Roe. We’re going to make it the law. Let’s make it the law for real again.”

But the loudest cheers of the day went to Cory Booker, who called bans passed by states like Alabama a violation of human rights.
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