With the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, Democrats lacking the numbers in the United States Congress to codify a national law to protect the right to abort, and increasing frustration.
Within the Democratic base and among women groups about the lack of a proactive approach by the administration on the issue, President Joe Biden issued an executive order – with a limited set of measures – to protect access to reproductive health services on Friday.
Announcing the new set of measures, Biden called the court’s decision “terrible, extreme and, I think, so totally wrongheaded”.
The SC decision leaves the decision on whether to provide abortion protections to states, with many Republican states already banning abortion altogether even as Democratic states have expanded abortion-related rights.
In a recognition of the limits of the executive order, the US President reiterated that the only way out was for the US Congress to restore the protections embedded in Roe v Wade as a federal law; and urged voters to turn out in large numbers in the midterms scheduled for November.
Democrats are hoping that at a time when the president’s popularity ratings are at an all-time low, inflation is a pressing concern, and polls predict a defeat for the party in the elections to the House of Representatives, the anger against the court’s verdict on abortion can lead to a higher turnout in favour of Democratic candidates.
While celebrating the verdict, Republicans are keeping the focus of the elections on issues such as inflation, immigration, law and order, and Biden’s perceived weaknesses.
According to a White House factsheet, Biden has asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services to take action and submit a report, within 30 days, on a set of measures to protect reproductive services.
These include protecting and expanding access to abortion care, particularly medication; ensuring emergency medical care including by updating guidelines to clarify a physician’s responsibility; expanding access to emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices; launching public education efforts; and working with lawyers to ensure “robust legal representation of patients, providers, and third parties lawfully seeking or offering reproductive health care services throughout the country”, including the right to travel outside the state to seek abortion.
Biden’s second broad set of measures relate to protecting patient privacy. These include addressing “the transfer and sales of sensitive health-related data, combatting digital surveillance related to reproductive health care services, and protecting people seeking reproductive health care from inaccurate information, fraudulent schemes, or deceptive practices”.
The third set of measures relate to safety of patients, providers and third parties providing, dispensing and delivering reproductive health services. This includes “efforts to protect mobile clinics, which have been deployed to borders to offer care for out-of-state patients”.
And the final set of measures relate to ensuring a coordinated approach, with Biden appointing a new interagency Task Force on Reproductive Health Care Access.