Joe Biden Denounces Hyde Amendment, Reversing His Position

After two days of intense criticism, Joseph R. Biden Jr. reversed himself Thursday night on one of the issues most important to Democratic voters, saying he no longer supports a measure that bans federal funding for most abortions.

As recently as Wednesday, Mr. Biden’s campaign had said he supported the measure, known as the Hyde Amendment. His decision to change positions illustrates the intense pressure he faces as the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president.

His turnaround was abrupt, particularly because Mr. Biden has grappled for decades with his views on abortion rights. While he has said he supports Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that made abortion legal nationwide, he has opposed members of his own party on a number of abortion measures, ascribing his reluctance to his Roman Catholic faith.

In a speech at a gala hosted by the Democratic National Committee in Atlanta on Thursday night, Mr. Biden credited the change, in part, to recent efforts by Republicans to roll back abortion access in states including Georgia and across the country — especially in the South — calling them “extreme laws.”

“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,” Mr. Biden said.

The former vice president, who generally resists expressing contrition for the views he held in the past, noted that he made “no apologies for the last position.”

Mr. Biden has been criticized for other pieces of his long political record. As a senator from Delaware he led the Judiciary Committee that subjected Anita Hill to harsh questioning when she accused Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991, and he was a sponsor of the 1994 crime bill, which many Democrats now say increased mass incarceration.