President Joe Biden is considering issuing executive orders to blunt the effect of an upcoming Supreme Court ruling that may overturn Roe v. Wade.
Biden’s comments came during a taping of ABC's “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on June 8. Kimmel, a comedian and left-wing activist who is an outspoken supporter of Obamacare, gave the president a softball interview that was punctuated with applause by the studio audience.
The face-to-face conversation was reportedly Biden’s first major media appearance since 118 days before, when he sat down with NBC’s Lester Holt on Feb. 10 before the Super Bowl.
The TV spot came five weeks after a leaked draft majority opinion indicated the Supreme Court was poised to reverse Roe v. Wade, the seminal 1973 precedent that federalized abortion policy, overriding the states and making the procedure lawful throughout the entire United States. The draft opinion was from a pending case from Mississippi: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Biden told Kimmel that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, “I think we have to legislate it. We have to make sure we pass legislation making it a law that is the federal government says, ‘This is how it works.’”
The abortion ruling is “just going to be the beginning,” Biden said, adding that the Supreme Court would then outlaw the use of contraception “because in the Constitution there was no right to privacy.”
“It’s just ridiculous in my view, and I don’t think the country will stand for it, but I think what we’re going to have to do, there’s some executive orders I could employ, we believe, we’re looking at that right now,” Biden said, without elaborating.
If Roe v. Wade is reversed “and these states impose the limitations they’re talking about, it’s going to cause a mini-revolution and they’re going to vote a lot of these folks out of office,” he said.
“We’ve got to keep it focused on–if they overrule Roe v. Wade and the state of California won’t do it, but other states say that you cannot do the following, and so as a law you can’t cross the border, you can’t–all the things that some states have, then you’ve got to make sure that you vote, you got to vote and let people know exactly what the devil you think and change it.”
“The dramatic escalation of attacks on abortion access—spearheaded by right-wing justices, lawmakers, and activists—demands comprehensive and creative strategies from every corner of the federal government,” the letter states.
The senators encouraged Biden to increase access to medication-based abortions, use federal resources to increase access to abortions, provide resources for individuals seeking abortions in other states, and clarify protections for sensitive health data.
Among those signing the letter were Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Dianne Feinstein of California, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.
