President Biden on Friday vowed to protect access to abortion pills and contraception in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
In remarks from the White House, Biden lambasted the decision as a “tragic error” carried out by an “extreme,” conservative-controlled Supreme Court.
“It’s a sad day for the country in my view, but it doesn’t mean the fight’s over,” he said, calling for Congress to codify the abortion protections that were guaranteed through Roe v. Wade through federal laws.
As for the White House, Biden vowed that his administration would protect women’s access to medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including both contraceptives and oral abortifacients such as mifepristone.
“My administration will also protect a woman’s access to medications that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA. Like contraception which is essential for preventative health care [and] mifepristone, which the FDA approved 20 years ago to safely end early pregnancies and is commonly used to treat miscarriages,” the president said.
“Some states are saying that they’ll try to ban or severely restrict access to these medications. But extremist governors and state legislatures are looking to block the mail or search a person’s medicine cabinet or control a woman’s actions by tracking data on her apps she uses,” said Biden. “[They] are wrong and extreme and out-of-touch of the majority of Americans.”
Biden said he was directing the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that such medications would be available to the “fullest extent possible,” without specifying what measures the department would be taking.
He also vowed that his administration would defend the “bedrock right” of a woman living in a state where abortions are now outlawed to travel to another state where it is available and terminate her pregnancy.
“If any state or local official, high or low, tries to interfere with a woman exercising her basic right to travel, I will do everything in my power to fight that deeply un-American attack,” said Biden.