Co-host of ABC’s “The View” Meghan McCain on Monday said President Biden is walking a “fine line” between personal religious beliefs and political policy relative to the issue of abortion as the Catholic Church is set to consider whether to allow him to receive communion over the issue.
“When it comes to the separation of church and state the onus is on the government, not the church,” McCain said on the program. “I don’t try and proselytize my spiritual journey on other people, but if you are a devout Catholic, as President Biden claims to be, abortion is a cardinal sin that can do deep spiritual harm to you.”
Biden had in the past been supportive of the Hyde Amendment, a controversial ban prohibiting the use of federal funds for certain abortion services, but when he ran for president he made a campaign promise to leave the amendment out of his government’s budget.
“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,” Biden said in 2019 in response to criticism for his previous support of Hyde. “I can’t justify leaving millions of women without the access to care they need, and the ability to exercise their constitutionally protected right.”
Last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to proceed with drafting a formal statement declaring what the meaning of communion is and clarifying if politicians who support abortion rights should be allowed to receive the sacrament.
“As far as I’m concerned,” McCain said, “abortion is murder … and that is a doctrine as old as the Catholic Church itself.”
Biden has repeatedly said he is personally opposed to abortion but politically he is supportive of women’s reproductive health rights and feels he does not have the right to impose his view on the rest of the country, an argument McCain said she doesn’t understand.
“It’s like saying, ‘Personally I’m opposed to murder but if you want to murder a little bit it’s fine because it’s not my problem,’ ” she said. “And he’s going to have to talk to his creator when the time comes, as we all do, and reconcile his politics with his personal faith.”
She concluded: “I believe he’s doing grave spiritual harm to himself and to this country.”