Scholars and theologians said he was pro-life, and hated the way the seamless garment was twisted to fit the agenda of the pro-choice.
He was very adament that it was completely out of context of what his philosophy behind was.
To my knowledge, he made only one statement where he lamented the pro-abortion use of the “seamless garment” theory, and that was basically in an attempt to defend it as it came under increasingly critical analysis.
Bernardin was one of the very earliest but at the same time most subtle of the AmChurch bishops; subtle probably precisely because he was early, and it was necessary to attain through sophistry what he could not do through a direct attack. I think he had a massively negative impact on the Church in the US, but because he was generally rather diplomatic about it and spent a lot of time unctuously presenting himself as the “great unifier,” he was much harder to combat.