A 31-year-old Sen. Joe Biden expressed several drastically different policy views than those he holds presently in a 1974 interview he did with the Washingtonian.
Though he has recently been making headlines over his shifting position on the Hyde Amendment, his views on abortion were far less liberal more than 40 years ago. He said of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationally, “I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
Of his identity as a liberal Democrat, he said: “I don’t care how that damn Americans for Democratic Action rates me. Those ADA ratings get us into so much trouble that a lot of us sit around thinking up ways to vote conservative just so we don’t come out with a liberal rating. When it comes to civil rights and civil liberties, I’m a liberal but that’s it. I’m really quite conservative on most other issues.”
He expanded on his position by saying: “I support a limited amnesty, and I don’t think marijuana should be legalized. Now, if you still think I’m a liberal, let me tell you that I support the draft. I’m scared to death of a professional army. I vote my own way and it is not always with the Democrats. I did vote for George McGovern, of course, but I would have voted for Mickey Mouse against Richard Nixon. I despise that man.”
Biden expressed antipathy toward abortion as recently as 2006, when he said, “I do not view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it’s always a tragedy, and I think that it should be rare and safe, and I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions. There ought to be able to have a common ground and consensus as to do that.”