A 2006 video of Joe Biden unearthed by CNN on Thursday shows the then senator saying he does not see abortion as “a choice and a right”.

“I do not view abortion as a choice and a right,” the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said in a videotaped interview with Texas Monthly. “I think it’s always a tragedy. I think it should be rare and safe,” he added. “I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions.”

The clip is the latest evidence of Biden’s inconsistent record on the issue. Last week, the former vice-president, a 2020 frontrunner, flip-flopped on his position on the Hyde amendment, a measure that prohibits the use of federal funding for abortions. One day after saying he supported the Hyde amendment, following backlash from Democrats, he dropped a position he had held for decades.

“If I believe healthcare is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s zip code,” he told an audience at the Democratic National Committee’s African American Leadership Council Summit in Atlanta on 6 June.

In 1977 Biden voted against a compromise that would have allowed federal funds to be used for abortions in cases of rape or incest or concerns for the life of the mother. The compromise passed in that case, but in 1981 Biden voted again to remove them.

Also in 1981, Biden voted to let states overturn Roe v Wade, citing his background as a Roman Catholic at the time and calling the decision “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a US senator”.

In 2015, he described his views to the Catholic magazine America: “I’m prepared to accept that at the moment of conception there’s human life and being, but I’m not prepared to say that to other God-fearing, non-God-fearing people that have a different view.”

Earlier in June, when pressed on his inconsistent voting record and statements on abortion rights, Biden became aggressive and wagged his finger in the faces of reproductive rights activists.

The activists said they fled the event, fearing it would “escalate”. “We didn’t want to be in a shouting match,” one activist said.

Biden has a rating of 34% from Naral Pro-Choice America, a group that scores candidates based on their track record of supporting abortion rights. His opponents senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand have 100% ratings from the group.