President Joe Biden, just like almost every elected official, operative, and major donor of his party, enthusiastically and persistently defends abortion. He made that clear in his State of the Union address on Thursday night, as was expected.
What’s shocking is how Biden ruthlessly advances the cause of abortion while claiming to defend democracy and be a faithful Catholic. Biden’s abortion agenda undermines both of those conceits, and his speech Thursday night made that crystal clear.
Biden portrayed himself as the defender of democracy, which he said is “under assault here at home.” But then, Biden said, “I believe Roe v. Wade got it right.”
One cannot defend Roe and democracy at the same time, though. The entire point of Roe was to take abortion out of the democratic process. Before Roe, state legislatures and Congress (and in many states, the people directly) determined abortion law. During Roe, the people and their representatives were stripped of that power.
When Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe, it was one of the biggest gains for democracy in generations. The very pro-life losses that Biden celebrated, such as the votes in Ohio and Kansas in favor of legal abortion, were the epitome of democracy in action, and they were impossible under Roe, which Biden thought was correct.
Biden also called for a bill to codify Roe. That would be democratic, yes, but it also puts him 180 degrees opposed to the teachings of his church. Biden tries to use the old Mario Cuomo line, that he is personally against abortion, but he believes that abortion is nonetheless a fundamental human freedom. This is not a position that is acceptable under Catholic teaching.
Catholic teaching doesn’t say that abortion is sad or “unadvisable.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”
Catholic teaching specifically holds that lawmakers have a duty to protect the unborn through “legislation.” That is, Catholic teaching holds that abortion should be generally illegal.
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A Catholic elected official who fights to legalize the killing of the unborn is one who rejects his church’s teaching.
Biden can be an abortion defender and a Roe v. Wade defender and do fairly well politically. But he shouldn’t get away with claiming he’s also a faithful Catholic who defends democracy.