Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

Reproductive rights groups have criticized US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for supporting an abortion restriction called the Hyde Amendment.

The 40-year-old law bars the US government from paying for abortion services, even when recommended by doctors . The measure has the practical effect of excluding abortion services from Medicaid, a public health insurance program for the poor and disabled, which nearly 17 million women of reproductive age rely on.

“To support the Hyde Amendment is to block people – particularly women of color and women with low incomes – from accessing safe, legal abortion,” said Kelley Robinson, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the reproductive health services group’s lobbying arm.

“As abortion access is being restricted and pushed out of reach in states around the country, it is unacceptable for a candidate to support policies that further restrict abortion,” said Robinson.

Biden, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president in the 2020 election, has changed his views on abortion in recent decades and his position has evolved increasingly as a defender of a woman’s right to choose.

But his presidential campaign confirmed on Wednesday that Biden still supports the Hyde Amendment, NBC first reported.

The report also noted that this stance sets him apart from the rest of his 2020 Democratic competitors. The campaign team said Biden would be open to repealing the Hyde amendment if abortion rights were threatened. Biden’s position was later confirmed to The Hill.

Republicans have launched severe attacks on abortion rights in 2019, with an unprecedented 40% of anti-abortion laws banning abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Abortion is legal in all 50 US states, because the 1973 US Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade established a constitutional right for women nationwide to obtain an abortion up to roughly 24 weeks.

Advocates said Biden’s persistence in his position is galling in light of these attacks, which have cemented support among Democrats broadly.

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“At a time where the fundamental freedoms enshrined in Roe are under attack, the 2020 Democratic field has coalesced around the Party’s core values – support for abortion rights, and the basic truth that reproductive freedom is fundamental to the pursuit of equality and economic security in this country,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-choice America. “Differentiating himself from the field this way will not earn Joe Biden any political points and will bring harm to women who are already most vulnerable.”

Republicans states have pushed unconstitutional abortion bans in an effort to get the issue before the Supreme Court. The nine-member court was rebalanced, from an even split on abortion to conservative-leaning, after the Trump administration successfully confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year.

States from Ohio to Georgia have passed so-called “heartbeat bills”, which America’s largest professional group of obstetricians and gynecologists criticized as medically inaccurate laws effectively banning abortion at six weeks into pregnancy.

“The Democratic Party platform is crystal clear in supporting the right to safe, legal abortion and repealing the Hyde Amendment, a position held by the majority of voters,” said Robinson. “Supporting Hyde isn’t good policy or politics. We strongly encourage Joe Biden to speak to the people whose lives are impacted by this discriminatory policy and reevaluate his position.”

Biden, who is Catholic, has a long record of flip-flopping on abortion rights. In the years following the Roe decision, he supported bans on the US federal government paying for abortions even in cases of rape or incest, and also voted to bar US federal workers from using private health insurance for abortion services.