Biden vows broad effort to fight Texas abortion law
‘Unprecedented assault’ on rights, president says
WASHINGTON • U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday said he is launching a “whole-of-government effort,” including from the White House counsel, to combat a strict new Texas abortion law after a Supreme Court decision let it stand.
Biden, a Democrat and Catholic who has shifted to the left on abortion in recent years, called the law that bans any abortion after six weeks an “unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional rights.”
The president said in a statement he was directing the office of the White House counsel and his Gender Policy Council to review how the government could “ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions ... and what legal tools we have to insulate women and providers from the impact of Texas’s bizarre scheme of outsourced enforcement to private parties.”
The White House will specifically look at what measures can be taken through the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, Biden said.
The White House has called for the “codification” of abortion rights that are protected by the court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision through legislation in Congress.
Most Americans believe that abortion should be legal up until the fetus is capable of living on its own, and they remain largely supportive of Roe v. Wade, a Reuters/ipsos poll in June showed.
The House will debate and vote on legislation stopping states from enacting restrictive anti-abortion regulations like the one just approved by Texas, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.
Biden’s Democrats have control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives with slim majorities.
The Texas ban has so far survived legal challenges partly because of an unusual feature that leaves enforcement up to individual citizens, who could collect cash bounties of at least $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits against women who seek abortion after their sixth week of pregnancy or those who help them.
Civil rights advocates warned that concept could cause havoc if it is adopted by other states or applied to other controversial rights — like gun ownership.
“It unleashes unconstitutional chaos and empowers self-anointed enforcers to have devastating impacts,” Biden said. “Complete strangers will now be empowered to inject themselves in the most private and personal health decisions faced by women.”
By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday denied an emergency request by abortion and women’s health providers for an injunction on enforcement of the ban while litigation continues. The ban took effect early Wednesday and prohibits abortion at a point when many women do not realize they are pregnant.