1972, Joe Biden, identifying himself as a devout Roman Catholic runs for the United States Senate from Delaware. He is elected and he indicates during the campaign that he holds what is basically an anti-abortion or pro-life position. That was 1972.
In 1976, Joe Biden, as a United States senator, votes for the Hyde Amendment. That was the legislation adopted on a bipartisan basis in both the House and the Senate that would prevent the American taxpayer from being compelled to pay for abortion against conscience. Joe Biden would later support the Hyde Amendment for almost 45 years. At so many points, during those four decades and more, bragging about the fact that he had supported the Hyde Amendment from the beginning and indicating his absolute resolve in principle that American taxpayers should not be compelled to pay for abortion when they believe that abortion is a grave moral wrong, he supported the Hyde Amendment in 1976, even when that amendment did not have an exception for rape or incest.
“I Do Not Want to Impose My Religious Beliefs Upon Others” to Pro-Abortion Rights Champion in Chief: History of Joe Biden’s Abortion Views Tells a Tragic StoryIn 2019 on June 6, just a day after the previous day, affirming his support for the Hyde Amendment, Joe Biden as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, all of a sudden announced he had changed his position, that he now opposes Hyde. Candidate Biden then said, "If I believe healthcare is a right as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's zip code." In other words, even as Joe Biden talks about how he resists political expediency and stands for intellectual consistency, in this case, he did a 180-degree turn in a matter of 24 hours for no reason other than blatant political expediency, because he wasn't going to be allowed within a hundred yards of the Democratic presidential nomination, unless he avidly, aggressively, assertively opposed the Hyde Amendment, which he had been supporting for 45 years and had bragged about voting for Hyde in similar measures no less than 50 times.