- US President Joe Biden plans to issue an executive order to strengthen women’s rights two weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled on abortion.
- The Supreme Court overturned the nearly 50-year abortion right at the end of June, arguing that it was not enshrined in the constitution.
- Biden has recently come under pressure within his party to do more to protect abortion rights.
“We cannot allow a runaway Supreme Court, working with the most extreme sections of the Republican Party, to take away our liberties and personal independence,” Biden said at the White House signing ceremony.
Among other things, this stipulates that access to contraceptives and medical abortions should be ensured. The data of women who find out about abortions, for example, should also be better protected.
It remains to be seen how much influence these measures will actually have and whether states can at least partially circumvent them with laws. Since there is no statewide law protecting the right, the legislature currently rests with the states. Biden’s decree does not change this legal situation.
His measures now include, for example, ensuring access to emergency medical care for women. In addition, the Department of Justice and the White House Legal Department are to establish a team of attorneys who will provide free counsel or representation for women who face legal difficulties over an abortion.
Dominant topic in congressional elections
For example, there was a demand that the Biden administration could attempt to set up abortion clinics in federal territory because state laws did not apply there. The White House had previously rejected this proposal due to legal concerns.
If you want to change the conditions for women and even little girls in this country, please go vote.
Instead, Biden is relying on being able to mobilize with the topic in the upcoming congressional elections in the fall. He hopes for a sufficient majority with which his Democrats could enshrine the right to abortion in a nationwide law. However, current polls assume that the Republicans will win more votes.
Legend:
The Supreme Court has a conservative majority of six to three judges – several are considered ultra-conservative and very religious.
key stone
“I really hope and believe that women will actually go to the polls in record numbers to reclaim the rights that were taken away from them by the court,” Biden said. He turned to the people of the country almost begging: “If you want to change the conditions for women and even little girls in this country, please go vote.”
He again violently attacked the court with its arch-conservative majority. The decision to abortion rights was the exercise of “crude political power”. “The court has made it clear that it will not protect women’s rights,” Biden said.
It makes its decisions on the basis of an interpretation of the constitution that has stood still – when women did not even have the right to vote. Many of the judges want to interpret the country’s constitution as it was probably intended by its authors when it was enacted more than 200 years ago.