One-hundred days ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right of Americans to abortion, overturning a half-century of precedent and throwing the lives of millions into uncertainty and chaos. The White House is marking the occasion with a report on the status of abortion and reproductive health 100 days out, and rolling out new guidelines on abortion access and health services.
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Cabinet members will meet to review the report from Jen Klein, the head of the administration’s interagency task force on abortion access. The White House is not shying away from the politics here: Republicans are responsible for this. “Republican elected officials at the state and national level have taken extreme steps to block women’s access to health care,” Klein said in the report. That includes the introduction of a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“The result is that in 100 days, millions of women cannot access critical health care and doctors and nurses are facing criminal penalties for providing health care,” Klein writes. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, Defense Secretary Denis McDonough, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona are also involved in the meeting because the new guidelines the White House is introducing will be overseen by them.
“Extreme abortion bans are having consequences that extend beyond abortion, including reports of women being denied access to necessary prescriptions and contraception at pharmacies and on college campuses,” said Klein.
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The Department of Education will remind universities that Title IX requires they protect students from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, and that encompasses protecting access to abortion and reproductive services. The HHS is announcing an expansion of Title X grants of more than $6 million to “protect and expand access to reproductive health care and improve service delivery, promote the adoption of healthy behaviors, and reduce existing health disparities.”
One-hundred days in and 13 states have totally banned abortion and criminalized the procedure. Georgia has a six-week ban, and another six states have attempted bans that have been blocked in state courts. As of July, just weeks after the ban, the Guttmacher Institute reported that 43 clinics in 11 states had already stopped providing abortions.
That’s overwhelmed states where abortion is still legal. In August, clinics in Illinois reported three-week wait times for patients because of demand, with 86% of patients coming from other states. Those three weeks could be critical in determining how an abortion is managed. A three-week delay could mean that someone couldn’t have a medication abortion because it’s only approved up to 10 weeks.
Badly written and confusing state legislation has led to unnecessary medical emergencies where pregnant people’s lives have been put at risk. Doctors have been confused on when they are or aren’t allowed to provide and abortion in medical emergencies—how close to death does the patient have to be? How much blood do they have to have lost? Pregnant people are being denied medically necessary abortions and are having their lives endangered because providers fear being charged with felonies.
All of this was foreseen in the amicus briefs the Supreme Court received before deciding Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organzation, the Mississippi case that tossed out Roe v. Wade. All of it was predicted. The children, victims of rape or incest, whose lives were put at risk by delayed services. Rape victims being forced to give birth and then dealing with the possibility of having to face their attacker in court in custody hearings. The people with illnesses being denied critical medications because those pills could also be used to end a pregnancy.
All of this the Supreme Court was briefed on, and more, in detail. They knew that abortion costs were going to soar because of the travel expenses involved. They knew that states were going to ban abortions with no exceptions, including for fetuses who have absolutely no chance of living after birth. They knew they would be forcing women to have dead fetuses inside of them. They knew they would be creating not just physical harm, but emotional harm to families having to make the ordeal of a dangerous pregnancy far worse. They knew they were putting victims of intimate partner violence in increased danger. They knew they were making the lives of the most vulnerable and the most marginalized—undocumented people, people of color, low-income people, LGBTQ people—even more difficult.
They knew they were unleashing confusion and chaos around the country, and that Republican legislatures would make it even worse with bad laws. They knew that the next step—one that they’ve set up—would be a national ban.
The White House is not going to announce that restructuring, reforming, or expanding the Supreme Court is on the agenda for its abortion ban response. As far as anyone knows, dealing with the court isn’t on Biden’s agenda at all. It has to be, because the 6-3 Trump-packed majority is not going to stop at Dobbs. They’re going to impose a national abortion ban if they have the chance.
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