Bob Casey explained how he’s evolved on reproductive rights during Senate debate

Protecting abortion access and reproductive rights were a main topic during Tuesday’s debate between US Sen. Bob Casey and Dave McCormick. Casey explained how he’s evolved on the issues following the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

Tuesday marked the second Senate debate between US Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) and his Republican challenger, Dave McCormick, ahead of next month’s election at the ABC 6 studios in Philadelphia.

Casey is running for reelection next month and has served in the Senate since 2007, while his opponent worked as a Connecticut-based hedge fund manager from 2009 to 2022. 

Protecting abortion access and reproductive rights became a focal point early in the evening just as it was in the first debate between the two earlier this month. 

“I think most Americans believe that our daughters shouldn’t have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers,” Casey said in response to McCorcmick accusing him of flip-flopping on his previous views on reproductive rights. 

“We’re at a point now where the country is going to make a choice in terms of this Senate race in terms of control of the Senate and that will largely determine whether or not those [reproductive] rights are restored or not. I’ve already voted twice to restore those rights.”

Casey, who has called himself a pro-life Democrat in the past, explained during the debate that his positions on protecting reproductive rights changed after the US Supreme Court issued the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

“In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned a 49 year right in the Dobbs case. When they overturned that right that was overturning Roe v. Wade and we had a very clear choice at that moment,” Casey said.

“Do you want those rights restored or not? It’s ban abortion or not ban abortion. That was the choice before the country and I voted at that moment to restore those rights through the Women’s Health Protection Act.”

McCormick previously supported the Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade during his failed 2022 Senate campaign against Dr. Mehmet Oz, calling it a “huge victory” and claiming the decision would move the country in a different direction. 

“If in fact the decision of the court turns out what was in this brief, this would be a huge step forward and a huge victory for the protection of life, which is certainly where the conservative and Republican party is in Pennsylvania,” McCormick said on the Laura Ingraham Show at the time. 

However, McCormick stated during the debate that abortion access should be left up to the states and not the justices he was praising a couple of years earlier. 

“I believe that it’s so polarizing that courts shouldn’t decide,” McCormick said. “Judges shouldn’t decide. People should decide, and there’s very different views across states. So I believe it’s a state’s rights issue.”