However, as a presidential candidate, Mr. Biden was far less vocal than many of his rivals in the primary, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who compared an Alabama law effectively prohibiting abortion to “a scene from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale'”.
“If you look at him as a Catholic and his attendance at Mass and the way he looks at life and death and everything else, he is culturally 1,000 percent Catholic,” said Jo Renee Formicola, professor of political science at Seton Hall University, who describes the relationship between investigated by the Catholic Church and American lawmakers. “He’s very, very Catholic, but when it comes to being political he’s a lot more pragmatic than Catholic.”
In office, Mr Biden reversed several Trump administration policies, including removing restrictions on abortion pills, lifting a ban on federally funded medical research using fetal tissue from abortions, and lifting restrictions on funding for U.S. and U.S.A. international groups that offer abortion services or referrals.
Some abortion advocates say these early steps are neglected. In his joint address to Congress, the threat to abortion rights was not mentioned, but only incidentally referred to “protecting the health of women”. Ms. Harris, who was once fairly open on the matter, has made no significant comments since taking office.
“The scale of the crisis calls for stronger leadership,” said Kelley Robinson, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “We want them to be explicit advocates of sexual and reproductive health care and use this bullying pulpit to make sure this is a priority expressed by the highest office in the country.”
Many proponents consider the president’s budget for fiscal year 2022, due to be released on Friday, to be a key indicator of the government’s position. Reproductive rights organizations urge Mr. Biden to keep his promise to remove the Hyde Amendment and other restrictions on federal funds.
His administration has also urged Congress to codify abortion rights that would guarantee reproductive rights nationwide even if the Supreme Court overthrew Roe. However, it has not proposed any specific legislation or outlined a strategy to get such a bill through Congress.
