"No, what I voted (was) against curtailing the right, criminalizing abortion. I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that it's a moment of conception," said Biden. "But then again, I also don't support a lot of other things. I don't support public, public funding. I don't, because that flips the burden. That's then telling me I have to accept a different view."
But Biden has in fact voted to force taxpayers -- no matter what their religion -- to fund the deliberate killing of human embryos, who Biden acknowledges are human lives.
On July 18, 2006, and on April 11, 2007, he voted -- along with Republican presidential candidate John McCain -- for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. It ordered the Department of Health Human Services to "conduct and support research that utilizes human embryonic stem cells ... derived from human embryos that have been donated from in vitro fertilization clinics."
In other words, it said taxpayers who share Biden's understanding that life begins at conception must pay taxes to fund researchers who kill what Biden affirms are human beings. (The bill did not become law because President Bush vetoed it twice.)
The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act had nothing to do with abortion. Biden needed to answer only two questions before voting on it: 1) should the government approve the deliberate killing of innocent human lives, and 2) should the government force taxpayers to pay for it.
Biden answered both questions: yes.
On July 25, 2006, Biden voted against the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. It prohibited "knowingly transport(ing) a minor across a state line, with the intent that such minor obtain an abortion, and thereby in fact abridge() the right of a parent under a law requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision, in force in the state where the minor resides."
In other words, Biden protected the ability of a stranger to sneak a teenager across state lines to have an abortionist kill her unborn child, even if the teenager and her parents, like Biden, affirm that life begins at conception and even if they belong to a religion that teaches abortion is murder.
When it came to these issues of life and death, Joe Biden would not have forced Americans to bow down to his convictions, he would have forced them to bow down to someone else's.