On what would have been the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade, the White House took executive action to protect medical abortion in the face of growing state reproductive health restrictions.
Vice President Kamala Harris announced President Joe Biden’s decision to sign a presidential memorandum during a speech in Florida on Sunday. Harris was in the state capital of Tallahassee to talk about the next steps in the fight for reproductive rights and to commemorate what would have been the golden anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to make abortion a national right.
“Last year, the so-called state leaders here in Tallahassee passed a sweeping abortion ban with no exceptions, even for survivors of crimes like rape, child molestation and human trafficking,” Harris said. “Here in Florida, health care workers face up to five years in prison for simply doing their jobs. And now, the state has also targeted medical abortion, and has even threatened Florida pharmacists with criminal charges if they dispense drugs prescribed by medical professionals.
“And Florida is not alone. Twenty-two states have announced they will not comply with new federal rules that allow women to get prescription drugs from a certified pharmacy. Imagine,” he continued. “So today we fight.”
The memorandum directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, to consider new guidelines to protect patients, health care professionals, and pharmacies who seek legal access, prescribe, or supply mifepristone — a drug approved for decades by the Food and Drug Administration to safely and effectively induce abortion. Mifepristone can be used alone or in combination with misoprostol, another pill used in medical abortions.
Medical abortion is still federally legal. Earlier this month, the FDA decided to allow providers to continue using telehealth to prescribe mifepristone and created a new option for certified pharmacies to offer it to patients. But some Republican state officials are working to prevent abortion seekers from legally obtaining mifepristone and to discourage pharmacies from obtaining FDA certification to dispense the drug.
Biden’s memo also asks the HHS secretary to ensure that patients are protected from harassment, threats or violence when trying to access legal reproductive care, including medical abortion.
The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion.
Since then, dozens of states have moved to impose abortion bans, including Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis recently proposed changing the state’s 15-week ban to a six-week ban. Republicans in at least two states have introduced laws to criminalize those who seek abortions, and Alabama’s attorney general vowed to prosecute those who use the abortion pill before retracting his comments.
On Sunday, abortion rights advocates across the country participated in the first Women’s March since Roe was overturned. The march returned to several cities across the country, with the largest of the events taking place in Washington, DC. To produce.
“America is the land of the free and the home of the brave,” Harris said Sunday. “But let’s ask ourselves: can we really be free if a woman can’t make decisions about her own body? Can we really be free if a doctor can’t take care of his patients? Can we really be free if families can’t make intimate decisions about the course of their lives?”
Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat via Associated Press
Dr. Sujatha Prabhakaran, an abortion physician at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, spoke in Tallahassee about the difficult decisions facing health care providers in states that have strict abortion bans.
“Since Dobbs’ decision, my colleagues and I have felt heartache over and over again. We must tell patients that we cannot provide the care for which we are trained and qualified. They understand that we want to help and they don’t blame us, but they know that they are no longer in control of their bodies,” he said before introducing the vice president.
“And for those of us who have been marginalized for so long — people who can get pregnant, people who are black or brown, people who are low-income or non-dominant or differently-abled — our loss. reproductive freedom has told us that we are less important, less valuable, and less safe.”
Reproductive rights advocates, including the president and vice president, have called on Congress to codify abortion rights since Roe was overturned. But with Republicans now in control of the House, many GOP lawmakers are pushing for the opposite: a nationwide abortion ban. Despite ongoing efforts by House Republicans to pass anti-choice laws that include misinformation about abortions, such legislation is likely to backfire in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
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