President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order on protecting access to abortion, two weeks after the Supreme court overturned the constitutional right to the procedure nationwide.
Biden was facing pressure from fellow Democrats to be more forceful on the subject after the Supreme Court ended a constitutional right to the procedure two weeks ago.
The president blasted the court’s decision, and urged Americans to vote for candidates in November who support abortion rights legislation.
The executive order was meant to “protect the reproductive rights of women in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s extreme decision to overturn Roe v. Wade”, said Biden in a Twitter post.
In an another tweet, Biden said ”Congressional Republicans want abortion to be illegal. But let me tell you something: As long as I’m president, I will veto any attempt. I don’t care what they try to do. I will never let it become law.”
The order directs the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department to take action to protect and expand access to “medication abortion” approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
It also directs the department to ensure women have access to emergency medical care, family planning services, and contraception, including intrauterine devices (IUDs.)
The Supreme Court’s ruling restored states’ ability to ban abortion. As a result, women with unwanted pregnancies face the choice of traveling to another state where the procedure remains legal and available, buying abortion pills online, or having a potentially dangerous illegal abortion.
The issue may help drive Democrats to the polls in the November midterm elections, when Republicans have a chance of taking control of Congress. Democrats have a slim majority in the House of Representatives and control the evenly divided Senate through Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.
Biden on Friday urged women to vote this November, saying the fastest way to reverse the Supreme Court’s rollback of abortion rights is to have large Democratic majorities in Congress to pass a law codifying such rights.
“This is the fastest route available,” he told reporters at the White House. “It’s my hope and my strong belief that women will in fact turn out in record numbers to reclaim the rights that have been taken from them by the court.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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