By Dave Andrusko
Including President Joe Biden’s address last evening, there have been 98 in-person Annual Messages/State of the Union Addresses. If you watched the entirety of his message, you know that Republicans were incensed by the President’s comments on Medicare and Social Security– the third rail of American politics.
He said “Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans, want Medicare and Social Security to sunset.” That’s our unifying president: rhetorically a gentle shiv in the ribs. For that he was vociferously booed.
The linchpin to his remarks was “Let’s finish the job.” Here’s what he said about “finishing the job” on abortion. (The prepared remarks are slightly different from what he said live.)
Congress must restore the right the Supreme Court took away last year and codify Roe v. Wade to protect every woman’s constitutional right to choose. The Vice President and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient privacy. But already, more than a dozen states are enforcing extreme abortion bans. Make no mistake; if Congress passes a national abortion ban, I will veto it.
#1. So to begin with “finishing the job” means, for President Biden, enacting the radical Women’s Health Protection Act which would remove all legal protections for unborn children on the federal and state level and prevent future protections for unborn children. That is stretching the web of death about as far as it can go.
#2. “The Vice President and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient privacy” means what?
That he is considering actions to advance access to abortion, including an effort to encourage states to apply for Medicaid waivers to pay for abortion travel. Biden has also announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs will pay for and provide abortions for “health reasons,” defined broadly as to be for any reason.
He ends with “finishing the job” on abortion by vowing to veto a national ban on abortion. With Democrats in control of the Senate, this allows him to sound tough.
But between #1 and #2 and the conclusion, Biden omitted all the other nefarious actions he’d love to take or already has taken. For example, his FDA has suspended protections that were established for women undergoing chemical abortions, including seeing the abortionist in person. Simply put, women will die.
And Biden (having shamelessly completed a 180 degree turnabout) would love to eliminate the Hyde Amendment, which eliminated almost all federal funding of abortion and in the process saved upwards of three million lives. And what better way to complete the Biden Administration’s campaign to multiply the number of abortions than promoting abortion around the world by reversing the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance program. Enacted by President Trump, it prevented federal taxpayer dollars from being used by abortion groups to perform or promote abortion overseas.
“The Biden administration and the Democratic party have yet to hear of an abortion they wouldn’t support,” said NRLC President Carol Tobias. “Tragically, women and their unborn babies will be the ones to suffer.”