Senator Elizabeth Warren's 2-minute pro-choice speech goes viral on social media
Democratic presidential contender and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren's pro-life speech during an MSNBC town hall in Indiana is going viral on social media. The speech comes at a time when her Democratic presidential rival and former Vice President Joe Biden is facing heat from women's rights advocates for his defense on federal money paying for abortions.
Biden, when he was a young senator in 1973, reportedly made a compromise with the Hyde Amendment after the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling legalized abortion across the nation. The amendment was passed in an attempt to prevent federal insurance funds from being used on abortions.
The former vice president, in his 2007 book “Promises to Keep", had written: “I’ve stuck to my middle-of-the-road position on abortion for more than 30 years. I still vote against partial birth abortion and federal funding, and I’d like to make it easier for scared young mothers to choose not to have an abortion, but I will also vote against a constitutional amendment that strips a woman of her right to make her own choice."
However, most of Democratic White House hopefuls have reflected their party's latest platform and have called for an outright repeal of the Hyde Amendment, except for Biden. Warren, in her speech, said Biden was wrong to support the abortion funding restriction and provided a two-minute explanation for why abortion must be legal. "I've lived in an America where abortions were illegal and understand this: Women still got abortions. Now, some got lucky on what happened and some got really unlucky on what happened," she said.
Elizabeth Warren gets asked if Joe Biden is wrong for supporting the Hyde Amendment. She says yes and then shows why she’s the best fighter the Democratic Party has, making an impassioned, unapologetic case for protecting women’s rights. #WarrenTownHall pic.twitter.com/EGCJeb7a8z
— Adam Best (@adamcbest) June 6, 2019
"Women of means will still have access to abortions. Who won't will be poor women, will be working women, will be women who can't afford to take off three days off from work, will be very young women, will be women who’ve been raped, will be women who have been molested by someone in their own family. We do not pass laws that take away that freedom from the women who are most vulnerable," the senator added.
A spokesperson for Biden's campaign Wednesday said the former vice president backs the measure, however, he "would be open to repealing it" if abortion access is further threatened by restrictive state laws. Multiple southern states in the U.S. passed anti-abortion legislation last month, severely limiting abortions in states like Georgia. Meanwhile, Alabama has passed a near total ban on abortions in the state, making no exceptions for rape and incest cases.