CatholicVote president calls on bishops to stand against Biden’s Planned Parenthood award

CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt is calling on Catholic bishops to speak out after former President Joe Biden accepted an award from Planned Parenthood of Delaware at its Sept. 24 fundraising gala.

“I am begging Catholic bishops to stand against this public scandal for the good of the soul of Joe Biden, battling cancer, and for the spiritual health of our nation,” Reinhardt wrote on X Sept. 24. “Even now more lives are at stake in Virginia, Nevada, Idaho, Missouri… All because THIS was tolerated for far too long by far too many.”

“Who's with me?” she added.

Biden received the 2026 Sonia Schorr Sloan Service Award at the affiliate’s Chocolate & Champagne Gala in Claymont, Delaware. Former First Lady Jill Biden presented the award, which bears the name of Sonia “Sonny” Sloan, a former Planned Parenthood of Delaware president and pro-abortion activist.

“This is an incredible honor,” Biden told the attendees. 

He called Sloan a “close friend and early supporter” and said she would have been “devastated” by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“In the wake of the Dobbs decision as president, I tried to do what I knew Sonny would have been on the phone telling me to do,” he said. “I took action, signed executive orders to protect access to reproductive health care, including emergency medical care.”

Other pro-life leaders criticized the award. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, responded sarcastically on X: “What an inspiration. Truly the kind of legacy we should all strive for.”