Biden will sign an executive order to protect the right to abortion after Supreme Court ruling

First modification: 07/08/2022 – 17:28

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, will take executive action this Friday, July 8, to protect access to abortion.

The president faces growing pressure from his party for not acting more urgently to protect women’s access to abortion and has been asked to be more forceful on the issue after the The Supreme Court revoked the legal protection of abortion on June 24 at the national level.

The White House announced that Biden will speak “on protecting access to reproductive health services.” The measures are expected to mitigate some penalties that women seeking abortion may face after the ruling, but are limited in their ability to safeguard access to the right across the country.

The order will also call for expanding access to abortion pills and ensuring that all patients have access to legally protected emergency medical services. It will also call for increased communication efforts on access to reproductive health services and abortion.

The executive order, according to the White House, also calls for federal agencies to work to educate medical providers and insurers on how and when they are required to share privileged patient information with authorities, in an effort to protect women who seek or use abortion services.

It will also ask the Federal Trade Commission to take steps to protect the privacy of those seeking reproductive care information online.

How will the executive order that seeks to protect the right to abortion work?

The White House, the Gender Policy Council and US Attorney General Merrick Garland will organize a team of lawyers, legal associations and civic entities that will “provide technical assistance to states that offer legal protections to patients of out of state, as well as to providers offering legal reproductive health care.”

The task force will “ensure that the federal government takes a swift and coordinated approach to addressing reproductive rights and protecting access to reproductive health care.”

Since the decision, Biden has stressed that his ability to protect abortion rights through executive action is limited without action by Congress.

“Ultimately, Congress will have to act to codify Roe into federal law,” Biden said last week during a virtual meeting with Democratic governors.

The president is expected to formalize instructions to the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to act on attempts to limit women’s access to federally approved abortion drugs or to travel to other states to obtain services in clinics. of abortion.

However, there are no guarantees that the judicial system will side with you against potential prosecution by states that have outlawed abortion.

“President Biden has made it clear that the only way to ensure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore Roe’s protections as federal law,” the White House said. “Until then, she is committed to doing everything in her power to uphold reproductive rights and protect access to safe and legal abortion,” they added.

The decision in the case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade.

Biden’s fear with the November elections

Political attention is focused on November 8, when the mid-term legislative elections and various state and local elections are held.

President Biden fears that a Republican-controlled Senate “will try to impose a national ban” on abortion, if the polls predicting conservative wins in both chambers are confirmed. Currently, control is held by the Democrats.

Biden made these statements a week ago during a meeting with Democratic governors from different states to learn about their efforts to protect the right to abortion.

During that meeting, the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, confirmed her state’s intention to include the right to abortion in the state Constitution, as has California and Vermont (governed by one of the few Republicans who defend the right to abortion). abortion).

“I think it’s going to be a huge blow to people when there is the first attempt by a state to arrest a woman for crossing the border to get an abortion,” said Biden, who was convinced that this “is going to happen”, although there are people who still do not believe it.

All the governors agreed on the need for the National Congress to try to protect, through a law, the constitutional right to abortion that had been in force for 50 years.

With AP and EFE