Comment on this story
comment
President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday directing his health secretary to consider actions to help patients who travel out of state for abortions.
The order’s travel-related provision asks Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to consider inviting states to apply for Medicaid waivers when treating patients who cross state lines for health care services. reproductive health
The executive order, the second that Biden has signed on reproductive health since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, follows the administration’s call for the Department of Health and Human Services to explore all options to support Americans living in states that have very limited access to abortion. The president’s actions came a day after Kansas voters rejected an effort to remove abortion protections from their state.
“[Republicans] I have no idea the power of American women,” Biden said Wednesday before signing the order. “They found out yesterday in Kansas.”
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed to protect the ability of Americans to cross state lines to seek abortions and other reproductive health services.
Biden, who is self-isolating as he continues to test positive for the coronavirus, signed the executive order ahead of Vice President Harris’ first meeting of an interagency task force on access to reproductive health. The president has joined the meeting virtually.
Two Long Weeks: Inside Biden’s Struggle to Respond to Abortion Ruling
The executive order also directs Becerra to consider actions to ensure that health care providers comply with federal nondiscrimination laws to ensure women receive the medical care they need, which could include providing technical assistance for suppliers confused about their obligations after the Supreme Court decision.
Finally, the order asks Becerra to improve research and data collection on maternal health outcomes.
In early July, Biden signed an executive order directing Becerra to identify ways the administration can help expand abortion access and signaled his intent to protect abortion access with medicines or abortion pills.
Biden last month referred to what he called “the terrible, extreme and, I think, so totally wrong decision of the Supreme Court.”
He added: “The court has made it clear that it will not protect women’s rights, period. Period. Having made the decision based on reading a document that was frozen in time in the 1860s when women didn’t even have the right to vote, the court is now practically daring the women of America to go to the polls and restore the very rights they’ve just been stripped of.”
But many activists have criticized Biden for responding too slowly to the decision, especially given that a draft opinion was leaked weeks before the official decision. Activists and some Democratic members of Congress have called on the administration to declare abortion access a public health emergency.
In some states, women who need medical care for miscarriages are getting care delayed or denied altogether in the face of confusion over the laws, putting some women’s lives at risk.
A group of more than 80 Democratic House lawmakers sent a letter to Biden and Becerra last month urging them to make abortion a public health emergency. But the White House has reservations about the measure because it would provide little additional funding and is likely to end up in the Supreme Court, which could use the case to curb the federal government’s emergency powers.
Yasmeen Abutaleb contributed to this report.