April 14
By Susan Milligan
When the Supreme Court handed down its stunning ruling undoing guaranteed abortion rights, the White House seemed caught somewhat off guard. President Biden, calling the ruling “a solemn moment,” tossed the ball to Congress and to American voters, saying the public needed to elect lawmakers who would codify abortion rights into law. He said he had asked his Health and Human Services Secretary, Xavier Becerra, to do what he could to ensure access to medication abortion drugs and contraception.
Then he urged people to be peaceful as they protested the game-changing ruling.
That reaction was disappointing to some fellow Democrats and abortion rights activists, who have never seen Biden – who earlier in his career voted against federal funding for abortion – as a sincerely staunch ally in the battle for reproductive rights.
Biden has since made access to abortion and birth control a common talking point, but his history as a Catholic personally opposed to the procedure has frequently made abortion rights activists unsure of how much Biden was willing to do to promote their cause.
“Amid the Supreme Court stripping Americans of their constitutional right to abortion after nearly 50 years, we need an urgent and robust response to ensure people get the essential health care they need,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America Senior Vice President Jacqueline Ayers said in a statement at the time.
That was last summer. This week, the administration appears to have learned a lesson, responding immediately and aggressively when a Texas judge last Friday afternoon issued a ruling halting the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication abortion drug mifepristone and speaking or acting daily on the issue.
Biden himself put out a statement hours after the ruling, slamming the decision as “another unprecedented step in taking away basic freedoms from women and putting their health at risk.” He vowed to fight it, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a separate statement, said the Department of Justice “strongly disagrees” with the ruling.
Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took to Twitter as well that night, laying out how they would fight the ruling.
Sunday, Becerra appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union,” calling the Texas decision “reckless” and saying “everything is on the table” to ensure women have access to the medication, which is used as part of a two-drug regimen to terminate a pregnancy.
On Monday, White House press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre began her briefing by declaring the administration’s strong opposition to the ruling and commitment to fight it.
“We were prepared,” Jean-Pierre said evenly.
On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a meeting of the interagency task force on reproductive rights, and the administration announced new rules to protect the privacy of women seeking abortions. The rules are aimed at limiting how law enforcement and state officials can collect health information to investigate women who travel to another state to get a legal abortion.
The Biden administration moved speedily to appeal the decision, winning a partial victory Thursday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
When that ruling from the conservative appeals court still included restrictions – including limiting its use to up to seven weeks of pregnancy instead of the previous 10 weeks and disallowing sending mifepristone by mail – the Biden administration appealed that as well. Friday, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court for an emergency stay on the Texas judge’s entire ruling.
This week, abortion rights activists have sounded more satisfied with the administration’s response.
“Today, the Biden-Harris admin announced new actions to safeguard patient privacy in the wake of unprecedented attacks on our reproductive freedom,” NARAL Pro-Choice America tweeted earlier this week.
“Thank you, POTUS and VP for your efforts to defend reproductive rights & protect access to abortion care,” the group said.
The administration is ready for “a long legal fight,” Jean-Pierre said.
This time, abortion rights activists appear to be in lockstep.