By Dave Andrusko
Editor’s note. Thanks to a kindly reminder, it was brought to my attention that Saturday June 6 was the one-year anniversary of pro-abortion Joe Biden’s somersault on the Hyde Amendment: he announced after decades of support, he now opposed it.
June 6, 2019, was a Thursday. It was exactly one day after “his campaign confirmed that he still backs the Hyde Amendment, a measure that prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion with exceptions for cases involving rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger,” the New York Times reported.
Today’s look back to what appeared in NRL News Today one year back includes both Part One and Part Two of our examination of the former vice president’s…evolving position on the Hyde Amendment.

How’s this for ironic? Our first post about Joe Biden, which ran on June 5, warned readers to scan the story quickly: he could flip-flop on his “support” for the Hyde Amendment before they finished the story.
Our second story—which was supposed to go out yesterday but didn’t (entirely my mistake) — went into further detail. For example, how Biden had already provided himself an escape hatch so he could oppose the Hyde Amendment when he felt the time was right. I’ve attached it, because there is some interesting background material.
Lo and behold, later in the day on Thursday, Biden, that profile in courage, saw the light. Here’s The Hill’s opening paragraphs:
Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment, just one day after reaffirming his decades-long support for the ban on federal funding for abortions.
“If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” he said at a Democratic National Committee gala in Atlanta.
Biden, according to the story, “made no apologies” for his previous support of the Hyde Amendment which bans virtually all federal funding of abortion and is credited with saving two million lives.
“But circumstances have changed,” he said. In other words, that was then (a couple of days ago) and this is now.
Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey’s tongue-in-check first sentence offered the perfect summary: “Joe Biden is a man of convictions — and if you don’t like those, he’ll come up with new ones for you.”
After having zagged on Wednesday, Biden zigged on Thursday. After fellow Democrats bashed him, Biden, of course, ran for the cover of utter incoherence. (As Morrissey noted, the Hyde Amendment is about federal funding, so the zip code remark is absurd even for Biden.)
How quickly did Biden flip his flip-flop? The night before Rep. Cedric Richmond, national co-chairman of the Biden campaign, went on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” to defend Biden’s momentary support for the Hyde Amendment “He is a deeply religious man…he is guided by his faith, his position on the Hyde Amendment has been consistent,” Richmond intoned.
That was before Biden felt the full wrath of his fellow pro-abortion Democrats running for President. But once he’d come around to saying he opposed the Hyde Amendment, all was forgiven.
Planned Parenthood President Dr. Laura Wen sang his praises while Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, chimed in, “We’re pleased that Joe Biden has joined the rest of the 2020 Democratic field in coalescing around the Party’s core values — support for abortion rights, and the basic truth that reproductive freedom is fundamental to the pursuit of equality and economic security in this country.”
If he could, now as before, Biden would no doubt want to have it every which way on abortion. But with abortion on demand edging over into support for infanticide now Democratic Party orthodoxy, he is out of wiggle room, not to mention principle which he always had in short supply.
What follows is yesterday’s story which did not get posted. Note the last line: “Biden’s is sure to ‘evolve’ on the Hyde Amendment.”