Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Americans to vote in the fall legislative elections to defend the “fundamental” right to abortion, if it were to be challenged by the US Supreme Court. If the highest court overturns the case law that has founded the right to abortion in the United States since the 1970s, as a document revealed Monday evening by Politico suggests, “it will be up to our nation’s elected officials, at all levels. , to protect the right of women to choose. And it will be up to the voters to choose candidates favorable “to the right to abortion in November, estimated the Democratic president in a press release.
“We will need more senators in favor of the right to choose, and a majority in the House of Representatives, to pass legislation codifying (the existing jurisprudence), which I will enact”, assured the head of the executive, fervent Catholic but also defender of the right to abortion.
Read also: The right to abortion more than ever in danger in the United States
Joe Biden, whose party fears a crushing defeat in these midterm elections, also promises that his administration “will be ready” to react when the extremely awaited decision of the American Supreme Court falls.
The president evokes in his press release an “administrative” response, without further details. The Democrats already control the House of Representatives and the Senate, but their majority in the latter institution is very slim, and has not allowed them so far to legislate at the federal level on the right to abortion, to crush extremely restrictive measures taken recently by a number of conservative American states.
The Politico site, based on an unprecedented leak of a draft decision, caused a political explosion on Monday evening by revealing that the Supreme Court was preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade in 1973, which founded the right of women to terminate a pregnancy in the United States.
The Supreme Court, remodeled by former President Donald Trump to give it a very conservative composition, would therefore return the United States to the situation before 1973, namely that each State would be free to authorize or prohibit abortion.
The right to voluntary termination of pregnancy is an extremely strong political marker for Americans and their political leaders. Politico’s revelation aroused the indignation of the Democratic camp, and the enthusiasm of many elected Republicans.