WASHINGTON — Pressured to do more to respond to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, President Biden will issue an executive order Friday to ensure women’s access to contraception and other health services, officials said. of the White House.
Details of what the president’s new order will do remain unclear. A fact sheet released by the White House said the order would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to take a series of steps and report within 30 days.
Those steps include taking steps to secure and broaden access to abortion care, ensure access to emergency medical care, strengthen outreach and public education, and help organize private attorneys to represent patients.
The decision will seek to protect patients’ privacy with regard to sensitive data, step up efforts to protect patients’ physical safety in health clinics, according to the fact sheet, and it will set up an interagency task force.
Biden has repeatedly said he has no authority to restore the constitutional right to abortion which the court ended when it overthrew Roe. In the hours after the ruling, the president said he was powerless to restore the status quo.
“The only way we can ensure a woman’s right to choose and the existing balance is for Congress to restore the protection of Roe v. Wade as a federal law,” Mr. Biden said. “No executive action by the president can do that.”
But that effort to shift responsibility to Congress hasn’t worked out well with some of Biden’s key supporters, who have repeatedly called on the White House to work harder to find new ways to enforce the court’s decision and subsequent abortion limits. imposed by Republican-led state legislators.
For example, some activists and lawmakers have urged the president to establish abortion services on federal lands or on Native American territories, where state laws banning abortion services may not be enforceable. The White House has dismissed those ideas as legally unworkable and potentially even more dangerous for women seeking abortions.
On Thursday, a reporter asked Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, if the president was investigating the possibility that the Department of Veterans Affairs could offer abortion services in VA hospitals.
“As you know, current regulations do not allow the VA to perform abortions,” Ms Jean-Pierre said. “We will continue to evaluate. We continue to explore all possible options to protect women’s rights and access to reproductive health.”
Asked about a possible executive order regarding abortion, Ms. Jean-Pierre declined to answer the question, saying she “wouldn’t get ahead of the president.”
Mr. Biden is expected to sign the executive order Friday before leaving for his beach house in Delaware for the weekend. The fact sheet does not contain any of the more far-reaching suggestions about using federal funds to provide abortion services.