President Biden is expected to take an executive decision Friday to ensure access to abortion. This comes amid mounting pressure from Democrats, who are urging him to act more strongly on the issue after the Supreme Court revoked a right to it two weeks ago.
The White House announced that Biden would speak on Friday morning about “protecting access to reproductive healthcare services.” However, the scope of his remarks was expected to be very limited. Biden is expected to give instructions to Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services in order to resist efforts to restrict women’s access to federally-approved abortion medications or travel across states to obtain clinical abortion services. Biden’s actions were discussed by the people under an anonymity.
Biden will direct agencies to train medical providers and insurance companies about when and how they must share patient information with authorities. This is in an effort to safeguard women using abortion services.
The order comes two weeks after the June 24 high court ruling which ended nationwide abortion rights and allowed states to decide whether to permit the procedure. It also comes at a time when Biden is being criticized by some members of his party for failing to act more urgently to ensure women have access to abortion. Dobbs, v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was the decision that overturned the landmark 1973 Roev. Wade court ruling.
Biden stressed since the decision that his executive power to defend abortion rights is restricted without Congress’s approval.
” “Ultimately Congress will have to act in order to codify Roe federally,” Biden stated last week at a virtual meeting of Democratic governors.
The tasking to HHS and the Justice Department is expected to press the agencies to defend women in court, but there are no guarantees that they will be able to take on the prosecution of states who have made it illegal to perform abortion.
