President Joe Biden called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the right to abortion a “sad day for the court and country.”
From the White House, Biden discussed the decision that, after almost 50 years, takes away a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. The decision will impact tens of millions of individuals as it’s anticipated that this will result in over half of U.S. states prohibiting or severely restricting the medical operation.
“The health and life of women of our nation are now at risk,” Biden said, stressing that the court has revoked a constitutional right for the first time.
He urged Americans to take the fight for abortion rights to the ballot this fall. “Voters need to make their voices heard,” Biden said, calling on voters to elect candidates that will restore the right to an abortion at the congressional and local level. “This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot.”
Although there is not much the President can do via executive action to impact the decision, Biden says that his administration would take every step it can to help women maintain access to abortions. This includes defending women who want to travel to another state for an abortion and protecting access to contraception and abortion pills.
“If any state or local official, high or low, tries to interfere with a woman exercising her basic right to travel, I will do everything in my power to fight that deeply un-American attack,” Biden said.
He called the decision to overturn the decades-old decision “a culmination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law and a “realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court.”