The president of the United States, Joe Biden, is responding to criticism for inaction in his management of the abortion crisis with a decree, which he plans to sign this Friday and which, according to a White House statement, seeks to "safeguard access to reproductive health services, including abortion and contraception, and protect the privacy and security of patients and clinics.”
The executive order comes just two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
in favor of overturning a half-century precedent established by another Supreme Court ruling,
Roe v. Wade,
which gave constitutional status in 1973 .
to the protection of abortion.
The decision returns to the States the power to legislate on the freedom of women to terminate pregnancy, which until now had been federally guaranteed.
26 of the 50 states plan to seriously restrict or prohibit access to abortion.
Biden's actions are designed to counteract those state laws while achieving a more elusive goal: pushing through Congress a bill that codifies the
Roe v. Wade guarantees.
It will not be easy: to achieve this, the Democratic Party, which has 50 of the 100 seats in the Senate, would need to add 60 supports, by virtue of the filibustering rule, which requires qualified majorities for far-reaching reforms.
The president has already warned that he is willing to press what is known in Washington as the "nuclear button," which would allow him to approve a federal regulation with a simple majority.
“Fundamental rights – to privacy, autonomy, liberty, and equality – have been denied to millions of women across the country,” the White House statement said.
“That has serious implications for your health, your life and your well-being.
This ruling will disproportionately affect women of color and low-income women, and those who live in rural settings.”
According to the document published early this Friday by the White House, the president has ordered the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, to protect access to abortion pills, which anti-abortion groups have placed as the next target in their war, trying to pursue its distribution;
54% of pregnancy terminations performed in 2020 in the United States were done with medication.
Becerra is also in charge of "guaranteeing emergency medical care for pregnant women and those who suffer a miscarriage", launching an outreach campaign, organizing the defense of patients who need it with a network of lawyers who work
pro bono
and to guarantee access to contraceptives.
The ruling of the Supreme Court bases its argument on the fact that abortion is not guaranteed in the US Constitution and that the Roe v. Wade ruling was "egregiously wrong from the beginning", because it relied on the protection of abortion to the application of the Fourteenth Amendment in the part that protects the privacy of individuals.
Other rulings that guaranteed the use of contraceptives, homosexual marriage and same-sex relationships are based on that same provision, rights that are now in question in the hands of the court with the most conservative composition of the last eight decades in the United States. .
The order now signed by Biden, which stops on the security of "mobile clinics" that provide reproductive health services, also provides for protecting the privacy of patients, as well as their access to accurate information and the confidentiality of their data.
To do this, a guide will be published that makes it clear to doctors that, "with limited exceptions, they are not required, and in many cases, are not authorized, to disclose private information of patients, even to law enforcement," according to the White House text.