President Joe Biden traveled to Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday to pay respects to and visit with the family of the state’s former first lady Ellen Casey.
Casey was married to former Gov. Bob Casey Sr. until his death in 2000, and their son, Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA), currently serves as the junior senator from the state.
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The Casey men, both Democrats, were devout Catholics. Like Biden himself for much of his political career, he often voted against the party on abortion rights. The president’s trip comes as Democrats eye abortion as a critical issue heading into the 2024 election, one that could likely lock up Biden’s reelection effort even in the face of a stagnating economy.
The president told reporters Thursday that he came to pay respects to Ellen Casey, who died last week, for the “enormous role” she held in his life.
“She loved with a fierceness and a tenderness that was incredible. And it was the Irish of her. She just was incredible,” Biden stated. “And I was saying earlier that — my sister and I were talking about her. And my sister reminded me of a quote about Michelangelo. It said: He saw the angel in the marble and carved until he set it free. That’s what she did with everybody. I mean, she really did, if you knew her.
“She was an incredible woman, and she raised an enormously successful and decent family,” he continued. “All the values I learned, I learned them here in Scranton, and she was an embodiment of them.”
Sen. Casey was just one of two Senate Democrats not to sponsor the Women’s Health Protection Act, a 2022 bill codifying Roe v. Wade, though he later voted for its passage on the floor. Like his father, Casey has billed himself as an anti-abortion Democrat.
His father was even more strongly opposed to abortion. He defended Pennsylvania’s abortion laws in a challenge to Roe v. Wade in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Roe was upheld that year in a 5-4 vote, but some of Pennsylvania’s abortion restrictions were allowed to remain in force.
Biden has backed abortion rights in the fallout from Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 2022’s Supreme Court decision striking down Roe 30 years after Casey, but the president, who has said he personally disapproves of abortion but supports a woman’s right to choose the procedure, often flip-flopped on the issue during his tenure in the Senate.
As a freshman in the Senate, Biden was initially critical of the Roe ruling.
“I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far,” he said in 1974. “I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
In 1982, Biden was the sole Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote to advance an amendment that would revert abortion policy back to the states.
Though Biden softened his stance on the issue in the late 1980s, he also supported three additional attempts to ban partial-birth abortion before exiting the Senate to become vice president.
Still, Biden has been arguably the strongest advocate for abortion access in response to a string of red state bans, certainly more than any Republican he might face in the general election, and there is growing evidence to support Democrats’ notion that the issue could be a top one for voters in November 2024.
Democrats, to some surprise, managed to hold on to their Senate majority and minimize projected losses in the House in the 2022 midterm elections, thanks in large part to high turnout in response to the Dobbs decision.
Ohio voters recently voted down a proposal to amend the state constitution that would make it harder to roll back bans put in place in recent months.
Democrats are currently mobilizing around an effort in Arizona, a critical swing state, to put the Arizona Abortion Access Act on the 2024 ballot.
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And the White House has repeatedly seized on Sen. Tommy Tubberville’s (R-AL) ongoing hold of Department of Defense nominations in opposition to the Pentagon’s abortion policy, indicating the Biden team believes the issue will motivate voters even in deep red states.
“It’s about freedom. It’s not just about choice,” Biden said of abortion access at a Democratic fundraiser in early August. “It’s not just about choice. Roe was a balance, and it was there for over — almost 50 years. But now, mark my words, they’re going after gay rights, LGBTQ.”
