President Joe Biden convened the White House Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access on Tuesday for the second time since the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and outlined steps the administration is taking to protect abortion access across the country.
The Biden administration has received some criticism from abortion rights advocates in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization for failing to provide an adequate response.
WHITE HOUSE STANDS BY RESPONSE TO DOBBS RULING DESPITE RAMPANT CRITICISM
Sunday marked 100 days since the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion ruling, and Tuesday’s meeting marked just the second time the entire task force had met since its inception. Vice President Kamala Harris, White House Gender Policy Council Director Jennifer Klein, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, and a host of experts joined Biden in condemning efforts by Republican-controlled states to ban abortion in the wake of Dobbs.
The White House estimates those bans block nearly 30 million women from abortion access in their home states after six weeks of pregnancy.
In particular, Biden singled out action taken by the University of Idaho to stop offering birth control and other contraceptives to students.
“Folks, what century are we in? What are we doing? I respect everyone’s personal decision to make on this, but my Lord, we’re talking about contraception here! It shouldn’t be that controversial,” Biden exclaimed.
To date, Biden’s attempts to protect abortion access have largely centered on calling on Congress to codify Roe into law and, barring a new federal abortion protection law, urging voters to cast ballots for Democratic lawmakers in November.
“The Congress should codify the protections of Roe and once and for all, but right now, we were short a handful of votes. So the only way it’s going to happen is if the American people make it happen,” the president added. “Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are doubling down on an extreme position with a proposal for a national ban. Let me be clear what that means. It means that even if you live in a state where extremist Republican officials aren’t running the show, your right to choose will still be at risk.”
“We’re not going to sit by and let Republicans throughout the country enact extreme policies to threaten access to basic healthcare, and that’s why we’re all here today,” Biden concluded.
In conjunction with Tuesday’s meeting, the Department of Education specially released new Title IX “guidance” for universities regarding their institutional requirement to “protect their students from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, including pregnancy termination.”
Furthermore, the Department of Health and Human Services announced more than $6 million in new grants to “expand access to reproductive health care and improve service delivery, promote the adoption of healthy behaviors, and reduce existing health disparities.”
Just an hour before Biden spoke, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre fended off critiques from reporters about the administration’s abortion response during Tuesday’s press briefing.
“I just want to get back to your — what you were saying about, alluding to on abortion and the criticism that we’ve received there on the Dobbs decision,” she opened in one such exchange. “I want to be very clear, because I think it’s important to note, and I’ve noted it a couple of times, is when the leak of the document happened, we did take action.”
“We did take action in those weeks leading up to the actual decision, and that was meeting with groups that were meeting internally, trying to figure out the best way that we were going to take, that we were going to respond if, indeed, the leaked document at the time during that moment was true,” Jean-Pierre continued.
“He was very clear what this could lead to, right? This could lead to not just Roe, the Dobbs decision, but it could also lead to marriage equality, contraception,” she said. “He was one of the first voices that sounded the alarm on what this could potentially — down the path, a dangerous path that the Dobbs decision could take us to, and we’re seeing that — we’re seeing efforts of that currently from Republican officials.”
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You can watch Biden’s remarks in full below.
