President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order directing federal agencies to undertake a number of initiatives to protect the right of women to access reproductive healthcare in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision allowing states to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will.
In remarks before signing the order, Mr Biden assailed the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which he said was neither “driven by the Constitution” nor “driven by history”.
“When you read the decision the court has made, it’s clear it will not protect the rights of women, period,” he said, adding that the court’s ruling was “based on a reading of a document that was frozen in time in the 1860s, when women didn't even have the right to vote”.
“I don't think the court, or for that matter of Republicans who for decades have pushed extreme [an] agenda have a clue about the power of American women,” he continued, adding that it is his “strong belief” that women “will in fact turnout in record numbers to reclaim the rights that have taken from them by the court”.
Mr Biden said fastest way to restore the rights women have lost “the laws restricting abortion which GOP governors and legislators have enacted “is to pass a national law codifying Roe” with the aid of two more pro-choice Democratic senators, and decried the “extreme Republican” governors and state legislators who support laws such as the one which recently forced 10-year-old rape victim to travel from her home in Ohio to Indiana in order to not have to carry her rapist’s child to term.
“Do you want to change the circumstance for women and women little girls in this country? Please go out and vote,” he said. He added later that Americans “cannot allow an out of control Supreme Court working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy”.
“The choice we face as a nation between the mainstream and the extreme between moving forward and moving backwards, between allowing politicians to enter the most personal parts of our lives and protecting the right to privacy,” Mr Biden said.
According to a White House fact sheet, Mr Biden’s order “builds on the actions his Administration has already taken to defend reproductive rights” by “safeguarding access to reproductive health care services, including abortion and contraception, protecting the privacy of patients and their access to accurate information, promoting the safety and security of patients, providers, and clinics, and coordinating the implementation of Federal efforts to protect reproductive rights and access to health care”.
The president said the order he signed asks the Justice Department “much like they did in the civil rights era, to do... everything in their power to protect these women seeking to invoke their rights in states where clinics are still open,” and to protect the right of women to travel in order to seek the care they need.
Mr Biden’s order will also direct Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra to take “additional actions to protect and expand access to abortion care,” including safeguarding women’s access to medications used to terminate pregnancies in lieu of surgical procedures, and ensure all women — including any who might have miscarriages — are able to access “the full rights and protections for emergency medical care afforded under the law”.
The White House said Mr Biden will order HHS to consider updating guidance that lays out a doctor’s responsibility to patients seeking care in emergency facilities under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, as well as direct Mr Becerra to “take additional actions to expand access to the full range of reproductive health services, including family planning services” including “access to emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices”.
Mr Biden said his order will also protect women’s privacy by directing the Federal Trade Commission to “crack down on data brokers that sell private information to extreme groups” and protect “private health information” from “states with extreme laws”.
The president order also directs the standing-up of an interagency task force overseen by HHS and the White House Gender Policy Council along with Attorney General Merrick Garland, who will “will provide technical assistance to states affording legal protection to out-of-state patients as well as providers who offer legal reproductive health care”. The task force will “ensure the Federal government takes a swift and coordinated approach to addressing reproductive rights and protecting access to reproductive health care”.
