CV NEWS FEED // President Joe Biden on Friday announced that he would defy the Supreme Court and state lawmakers by signing an executive order to federally “protect” and “expand access to” abortion.
The Biden administration claimed in a briefing that the “only way” to secure women’s rights is through protecting Roe vs. Wade as “federal law.” The same memo argued that the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling striking down Roe vs. Wade stripped women of their rights “to privacy, autonomy, freedom, and equality.”
Biden publicly denounced the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson on the day of its release, but he promises to go much further in his new executive order.
The president will do “everything in his power” to defend abortion, the briefing stated. The executive order will make “medication abortion as widely accessible as possible” and protect women’s “access to accurate information.”
The announcement comes amid Democratic calls to “crack down” on pregnancy care clinics. Since they do not abort babies, Democrats argue, such clinics are “deceptive” and do not provide “accurate” information to the women who turn to them for help during crisis pregnancies. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, said this week that such clinics are “fake” and that the Democratic Party should work to “stop” them.
CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky pointed out that this Democratic rhetoric, and Biden’s proposed executive order, also coincide with a rash of attacks on pro-life women’s care clinics by pro-abortion terrorist groups.
“At a time when Joe Biden’s administration is ignoring the unprecedented attacks on pregnancy resource centers, the president releases an executive order authorizing his administration to use the government to attack . . . pregnancy resource centers,” McClusky said. “He also is asking the government to willfully ignore the Constitution to declare war on pro-life states”
McClusky says that “the administration is desperate and states need to fight back through the courts to stop them.”
Biden’s Friday briefing includes “promoting the safety” of providers and clinics as a concern. McClusky noted that crisis pregnancy centers (which do not abort) are not mentioned.
Biden on Frida also said he directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “expand access to abortion care,” “ensure that medication abortion is as widely accessible as possible,” and “clarify physician responsibilities and protections” to dictate that health professionals must be willing to perform abortions.
HHS must “expand access to the full range of reproductive health services… such as access to emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices,” the White House stated:
The Secretary of HHS has already directed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to take every legally available step to ensure patient access to family planning care [abortion] and to protect family planning providers [Planned Parenthood & abortion doctors].
The federal government will also “Launch Outreach and Public Education Efforts … regarding access to reproductive health care services—including abortion,” and establish “the right to travel out of state to seek medical care.”
The administration also plans to protect “people seeking reproductive health care from inaccurate information.”
“In other words, they will protect people from information that they don’t want them to know, such as the existence of crisis pregnancy centers,” said McClusky:
I fear as the Democratic-controlled Congress and the White House realize how ineffective they are in pushing back against the nation’s pro-life tide they will become more radical – from ignoring Hyde to allowing abortions on federal lands.
HHS also recently announced nearly $3 million in new spending to support “family planning needs,” essentially funding abortions. Additionally, on the day of the Dobbs decision, HHS launched ReprotectiveRights.gov, which promotes “awareness of and access to family planning services.”
HHS isn’t the only federal department promoting abortion. The Office of Personnel Management also issued a statement “affirming that paid sick leave can be taken to cover absences for travel to obtain reproductive health care.”
Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation, released the following statement in response:
Rather than acknowledge that Americans consistently reject abortion on demand through all nine months, President Biden’s executive order doubles down on abortion extremism. Expanding the reach of deadly abortion pills, bullying non-profits that help women choose life, and instructing people to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement proves that this administration is in the pocket of an abortion industry desperate to keep its profit centers afloat.
…The pro-life movement won’t let an abusive federal government undermine the cause of saving babies and helping women and families.
Because some radical states are following Biden’s lead on abortion, Congress must use all available constitutional authority to protect the youngest and most vulnerable among us from the violence of abortion, no matter what state their little hearts are beating in. Lawmakers also must protect babies who survive abortions, stop the interstate flow of deadly abortion pills, halt any taxpayer dollars from going to the abortion industry, and ensure no American is forced to violate his or her moral or religious convictions by being forced to participate in abortion or abortion insurance coverage.
The Biden administration has yet to release any statement about the 50 plus crisis pregnancy centers that have been hit just since May.