The US president, Joe Biden, has taken a step forward in protecting the right to abortion after the decision made at the end of June by the Supreme Court, which annulled the Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized for the first time the right of women to unrestricted abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy, a legal precedent that has been used in the country since 1973.
Biden, who has come under pressure over this matter and has stated on several occasions that the court’s decision should be reversed, plans to sign an executive order this Friday that will protect abortion and other fundamental rights such as “privacy, autonomy, freedom and equality,” the White House said in a statement.
The order urges the Department of Health to take measures to guarantee access to abortion medication and seeks to increase the protection of health workers who carry out these practices within the framework of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Work Law. In addition, it indicates that the Department of Health will have to issue a report in 30 days on the implementation of these new measures.
For the president, the court’s decision “removed a right that the American population had had for almost 50 years, that of deciding the reproductive health of each woman regardless of government interference.” “Fundamental rights have been denied to millions of women throughout the country, with the serious consequences that this implies for their freedom, their lives and their well-being,” the text states.
Thus, the White House has pointed out that this decision will especially affect “women of color, with low resources and who reside in rural areas” and has indicated that the objective of this executive order is to also protect the privacy of those women who use applications of monitoring for menstruation.
However, he has asserted that none of these measures will fully restore the right to abortion to thousands of people who “have lost it” and has stressed that the “only way to safeguard a woman’s right to decide is through Restoration of the Roe v. Wade Precepts by Congress”.
The decision has been made two weeks after the Supreme Court annulled Roe v. Wade with the vote in favor of the six conservative judges and the rejection of the three liberal magistrates of the high court.
By removing the character of constitutional right, the Supreme Court ruling gives states free rein to enforce its ban, amid a dispute over a 2018 law passed by the Mississippi Republican legislature to ban abortions after 15 weeks.
