Reporter Confronts Biden: ‘As a Catholic, Why Do You Support Abortion?’

President Biden defended his position on abortion in an exchange with a reporter at a press conference on Tuesday on the south lawn of the White House.

“Why do you support abortion as a Catholic, defying church teaching?” EWTN reporter Owen Jensen asked.

“I’ll tell you what, I don’t want to get into a debate with you on theology, but you know…well anyway,” Biden replied.

“But why? Why support abortion as a pro-life—” the reporter interjected. Biden answered, “I’m not going to make a judgment for other people.”

The exchange came after Biden received ashes from Cardinal Wilton Gregory to mark Ash Wednesday.

“I was with the cardinal this morning. He came over to give me ashes. We both prayed…for the people of Ukraine,” Biden told reporters.

While Biden is a practicing Catholic, he has repeatedly been criticized over his stance on abortion. The president wrote in his 2007 book Promises to Keep that he is “personally opposed to abortion,” however he doesn’t think has has the “right to impose [his] view on the rest of society.”

While Biden backed a constitutional amendment in 1982 that would have allowed states to overturn Roe v. Wade, Biden has since turned to support the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case.

Biden said Texas’s September 2021 law banning abortions at detection of a fetal heartbeat “blatantly violates Roe v. Wade,” adding “my administration is deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade nearly five decades ago and will protect and defend that right.” During his 2020 presidential campaign, he also abandoned his long-held opposition to the Hyde amendment, which bars federal funding from going toward abortion.

The Biden administration in October revoked a rule, initially instated by the Trump administration, that banned federally-funded health care clinics from providing referrals for abortions.