President Joe Biden said Friday that the federal government will protect women seeking the abortion pill in states where it’s been banned as well as women who need to cross state lines to get the procedure.
“As I said last week: This is not over,” Biden said at a meeting with Democratic governors to discuss abortion access, one week after the Supreme Court reversed the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a constitutional right to an abortion.
“Last week, I announced two specific actions,” he said. “First, that if extremist governors try to block a woman from traveling from her state that prohibits her from seeking medical help she needs to a state that provides that care, the federal government will act to protect her bedrock rights through the attorney general’s office.”
“I share the public outrage of this extremist court that’s committed to moving America backward, with fewer rights and less autonomy,” Biden said in opening comments. The president reiterated that the attorney general’s office will work to protect the ability to cross state lines for abortion services and protect access to contraceptives and abortion medication.
Joining the president for the roundtable were New York’s Kathy Hochul, New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan Grisham, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, Colorado’s Jared Polis, Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Oregon’s Kate Brown, Rhode Island’s Daniel McKee and Washington’s Jay Inslee — many whose states border others that have trigger laws going into effect this summer that limit or outlaw abortion after the Supreme Court’s action.
Abortion rights groups have filed legislation in multiple states seeking to preserve the ability of women to terminate pregnancies.
Judges in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Utah have since issued decisions preventing those states from enforcing new restrictive abortion laws, while Ohio’s top court on Friday declined to block the Republican-led state from enforcing an abortion ban.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul told the group that “just a handful of states” are going to have to take care of health of women across the country.
Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the latest Pew Research poll.
The president warned that authorities in states outlawing abortion may arrest women for crossing state lines to obtain the procedure elsewhere.
“I don’t think people believe that’s going to happen, but it’s going to happen,” he said, calling the issue a “gigantic deal” that affects all basic rights of Americans.
Last week the administration announced it would protect women’s access to medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including contraceptives and pills to end pregnancy such as mifepristone. It also pledged to defend the “bedrock right” of a woman to travel across state lines to terminate her pregnancy.
Biden urged Americans to vote for lawmakers who support abortion rights, saying that two more Democratic senators were needed to change the filibuster rules in the Senate, which could allow a bill to pass that would codify the right to an abortion. The term filibuster describes actions designed to prolong debate to delay or prevent a vote by lawmakers.
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