Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders backed abortion rights and ridiculed male-dominated legislatures governing women's bodies in a 1972 article surfaced Wednesday. The commentary reveals another stark, decades-long contrast between he and former Vice President Joe Biden's progressive stances.

Sanders told Vermont's Bennington Banner newspaper in September 1972 -- months before the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade -- that abortion procedures should only be a concern between a woman and her physician. The article sits aside several letters the then-Liberty Union candidate for governor wrote to local newspapers calling for the abolition of "all laws dealing with abortion, drugs, sexual behavior."

The Bennington Banner confirmed to Newsweek Wednesday that Sanders was interviewed for the published 1972 article in which he feared women "will be forced to go to those states where abortions are legal."