Story at a glance
- On Friday, President Biden signed an executive order that aims to restore some access to abortion through empowering Health and Human Services (HHS).
- HHS will expand access to medication abortion and the Attorney General’s office will help provide legal assistance to those who seek lawful reproductive health care services.
- Some abortion advocates say the executive order does not go far enough and that it is only the first of many necessary steps to combat states’ restrictive abortion laws.
President Biden attempted to preserve abortion access on Friday through executive action but stopped short of restoring full access to the procedure or preventing states from enacting their own restrictions or bans.
The executive order Biden signed empowers Health and Human Services (HHS) in a variety of ways, including the authority to protect and expand access to medication abortion — something the Department of Justice also warned states of, saying they cannot ban mifepristone, a drug used to aid in abortion, as it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Biden’s executive order also ensures that people suffering medical emergencies while pregnant, like those experiencing a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancies, cannot be denied care — potentially allowing them to receive medically necessary abortions.
HHS will also be allowed to expand access to reproductive health services — namely, access to emergency contraception and intrauterine devices (IUD). The executive order also taps into the Attorney General’s office and will organize private pro bono attorneys to help provide legal representation for patients, providers and third parties that lawfully seek reproductive health care services — like abortion.
The executive order does not stop states from limiting abortion access.
Though the executive action does target issues created in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s June decision that abortion is not considered a constitutional right — and which overturned Roe v. Wade — it doesn’t directly address access to surgical abortion for anyone that wants it.
After Roe was overturned, over a dozen states enacted trigger laws that severely restricted abortion or outright banned it. Additional states began introducing and enacting abortion restrictions, but Biden’s executive order doesn’t address what states can or cannot do when it comes to abortion access.
Abortion access was not declared a public health emergency
The order also doesn’t declare abortion a public health emergency, which would allow the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to take countless actions, including distributing more funding and personnel to health care centers and coordinating efforts between state and federal agencies.
Abortions still cannot be done on federal land
Another issue not addressed in Biden’s executive order is the Hyde Amendment, a law that prohibits using federal money on abortions, including the ability to conduct abortions on federal land. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has reiterated since 2019 that the amendment overwhelmingly harms low-income Americans and women of color — because research has shown that low-income people disproportionately seek abortions.
On Friday, Jen Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said that declaring abortion access a public health emergency wasn’t off the table, but that the White House doesn’t think it will free up many resources or release significant legal authority.
Abortion advocates want more action
Abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America reacted to Biden’s executive order by saying it was an important first step and that it looked forward to working with the Biden administration to make good on its promise to champion reproductive freedom.
Sara Tabatabaie, chief political officer and communications director for #VoteProChoice, reacted to Biden’s executive order on Friday on Twitter and said in part, “what was announced today is not nearly enough of a response to the immeasurable suffering that has already started and will continue to grow as a result of the anti-choice attack on our reproductive freedom.”
Tabatabaie continued by criticizing Biden’s effort, saying, “a true prochoice champion would use all of the power to fight back whether through creative uses for federal land and money, meeting with abortion providers or even doing the bare minimum of giving a prime-time address so that people can see their president fighting for them.”
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