Once conflicted, Biden embraces role as abortion defender

WASHINGTON (AP) — Soon after being elected to the U.S. Senate, Joe Biden was pulled aside by a Democratic colleague who wanted to know how he was going to vote on abortion.

Biden explained that while he was personally opposed to abortion and would resist federal funding for the procedure, he didn’t want to impose his view on others by overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

“That’s a tough position, kid,” said Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut. Then Ribicoff offered him some advice, Biden recalled years later in a memoir: “Pick a side. You’ll be much better off politically. Just pick a side.”

During five decades in elected office, Biden has tried to avoid picking a side on abortion whenever he could. Now that's impossible as the Supreme Court seems poised to strike down the constitutional right to abortion. A draft copy of the court's majority opinion was published by Politico earlier this week, and a final decision is expected this summer.

As the Democratic president who happens to be serving when the Republicans' anti-abortion agenda reaches its crescendo, Biden is being drafted into the kind of fight that he's sidestepped for much of his career.

It’s not a natural role for him, despite his longtime defense of a woman's right to choose whether to end her pregnancy. Like many Catholic Democrats, he's expressed conflicting opinions on abortion, which his church regards as a sin but his political party views as a legal right.

Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Biden “understands there’s a difference between his personal view and what he would do in his personal life, and what he and his party stands for in terms of protecting freedoms for the American people.”

Although Biden called for...