Former President Joe Biden took home a Planned Parenthood service award at a Delaware gala, a move critics say collides with his public claim to be a faithful Catholic.

Biden attended the group’s “Chocolate and Champagne Gala” in Delaware on Thursday and received the Sonia Schorr Sloan Service Award. Former first lady Jill Biden presented the honor as the crowd cheered.

BizPac Review reported that Biden used the moment to praise the award’s namesake, activist Sonia “Sonny” Sloan, and to defend the steps he took after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

He told the room that Sloan “would have felt devastated” by the Dobbs decision, along with “anger and astonishment.” He added that she “wasn’t afraid” and would not have wasted “a single moment wringing her hands.”

Biden went further. He credited Sloan with shaping his entire political career and said he tried to act as she would have after Dobbs.

“Following the Dobbs decision, as president, I tried to do what I knew Sonny would have done. We took action. We signed executive orders to protect access to reproductive health care, including emergency medical care,” Biden said.

Record abortions and record public money under Biden

The award lands against a clear backdrop. During Biden’s years in the White House, Planned Parenthood logged record abortion totals and record government funding, according to figures BizPac Review relayed from Breitbart’s coverage of the group’s most recent report.

That report put Planned Parenthood abortions at 434,450 unborn babies in 2023 and 2024. The same period brought the organization $832 million in government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements, a $39.8 million jump from the prior report.

Those numbers are not side notes. They describe what the nation’s leading abortion provider did while Biden held the presidency and signed the executive orders he now cites with pride.

Readers tracking the Biden family’s public record will recognize the pattern of high-profile appearances that keep the former president in the spotlight, much like coverage of Biden’s recent health updates and other family statements.

Catholic identity meets the gala stage

Biden has long described himself as a faithful Catholic. Accepting an award from Planned Parenthood puts that claim under a harsh light for many voters who hold the Church’s teaching on abortion as non-negotiable.

LifeNews.com framed the night in blunt terms on X: “BREAKING: Planned Parenthood gives Joe Biden an award for helping it kill more babies in abortions.”

Other users echoed the same clash. One account asked what part of “faithful Catholic” includes killing babies. Another called the celebration of the award a sad day for the country.

The criticism is not abstract. Catholic teaching rejects abortion. Planned Parenthood’s core business is providing it at scale. Biden stood on that stage, took the Sloan award from his wife, and cast his post-Dobbs executive orders as a moral continuation of an activist’s work.

Jill Biden’s role in handing him the award keeps the moment inside the family brand that has defined their public life, a brand also examined in reporting on how Biden privately weighed major political decisions with those closest to him.

What Biden chose to highlight

Notice what the former president emphasized. He did not dwell on the half-million abortions tied to the years he held power. He did not address the $832 million in public money that flowed to the group. He spoke about Sloan’s resolve and about executive orders meant to lock in abortion access after Dobbs.

Dobbs returned abortion policy to the states in 2022. Biden answered with federal directives he now presents as the obvious next step. The gala audience heard that story. They did not hear a defense of the Catholic position that human life deserves protection in the womb.

That gap is the story. A politician can claim a religious label. He can also spend his presidency expanding the reach of the nation’s largest abortion provider and then accept its award. Both things happened. Voters can weigh them together.

Legacy questions around the Biden White House continue on other fronts too, including fights over records and how courts have treated Biden’s efforts to keep certain materials sealed.

Public money, private celebration

Planned Parenthood’s funding haul matters because it is taxpayer money. Grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements are not private donations. They are public dollars underwriting an organization that set abortion records while Biden was president.

The Delaware gala wrapped that record in chocolate, champagne, and a named service award. Jill Biden did the honors. Joe Biden tied it to a personal political origin story and to the executive actions he took in office.

For Americans who want abortion limited by law, the scene is straightforward. The same administration that treated abortion access as a federal priority is now being thanked, on stage, by the group that performed the procedures and collected the funds.

Separate Biden family headlines have kept public attention on the clan’s ventures and controversies, including the short life of Hunter Biden’s meme coin launch, which underscored how quickly the family’s side stories can dominate a news cycle.

A label that no longer sells itself

Biden’s Catholic identity has been part of his political brand for decades. Nights like this one test whether that brand still carries weight with people who take the underlying teaching seriously.

He left the presidency with Planned Parenthood stronger in procedure volume and richer in government support than before. He then showed up in Delaware, accepted the Sloan award, and described his abortion-access orders as the path Sloan herself would have demanded.

White House history and image remain contested ground, as seen when Trump used Biden’s portrait placement to needle the former president’s record in front of foreign leaders.

The gala did not resolve any policy fight. It did make the contradiction visible. A self-described faithful Catholic took an award from the country’s leading abortion provider after years in which that provider set new marks for abortions and for public funding. The facts are on the table. The label is Biden’s to defend.

Voters who value both faith and the protection of unborn life do not need a lecture. They can see the stage, the award, the numbers, and the gap for themselves.