By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com, editor@news-photos-features.com
A firery President Biden delivered a tour de force State of the Union address, in the first five minutes, hitting at the need to stand with Ukraine against Russia’s brutal invasion, January 6th insurrection and women’s reproductive rights – defense of democracy abroad, defense of democracy at home, and defense of individual freedom.
“There are state laws banning the freedom to choose, criminalizing doctors, forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states to get the treatment they need. Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom. My God, what other freedom would you take away?” he declared.
In the hallowed hall of the Capitol Building were some 30 women’s reproductive rights advocates who were invited guests of the President and First Lady Jill Biden, and various Congressmembers. Among them, Kate Cox, a wife and mother from Dallas, whose fetus she was carrying had a fatal condition. Though her doctor told Kate that her own life and her ability to have children in the future were at risk if she didn’t act, Texas law banned her ability to act, so she and her husband had to leave the state to get the care she needed.
“What her family had gone through should have never happened. But it’s happening to too many others,” Biden declared.
“History is watching another assault on freedom,” he said, introducing Latorya Beasley, a social worker from Birmingham, Alabama, who had her first baby through IVF, and was in the process of having a second child through IVF. Then, IVF treatments were suddenly shut down across the state when the Alabama Supreme Court, citing Genesis, determined that a frozen embryo was equivalent to a living child with “personhood” rights – a decision enabled by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs’ decision that took away women’s reproductive rights.
Citing the Supreme Court’s own language excusing taking away a constitutional right that has stood for 50 years, “with all due respect, Justices,” Biden said, “’Women are not without electoral or political power.’ You’re about to realize just how much you were right about that. Clearly, those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women.
“But they found out. When reproductive freedom was on the ballot, we won in 2022 and 2023. And we’ll win again in 2024. If you — if you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again. Folks, America cannot go back.”
(The radical religious Supreme Court is poised to ban mifeprestone, a key abortion medication used in half of all abortions, as well as miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy.)
In his Women’s History Month proclamation, President Biden declared, “Despite the progress that these visionaries have achieved, there is more work ahead to knock down the barriers that stand in the way of women and girls realizing their full potential -- in a country founded on freedom and equality, nothing is more fundamental. That is why my Administration has put women and girls at the heart of everything we do.”
Biden established the White House Gender Policy Council to advance gender rights and opportunities across domestic and foreign policy; released the Nation's first-ever National Gender Strategy to advance gender equity and equality across the Administration -- from women's economic security and leadership opportunities to freedom from gender-based violence and equal access to education and health care. Biden named a record number of women to key administration positions, including the first woman Vice President, Kamala Harris, and first black woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, cabinet secretaries including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (first Native American), Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge,
“If we want to have the strongest economy in the world, we cannot leave women -- half of our workforce -- behind...We are increasing their access to new jobs in sectors where women have been historically underrepresented, like manufacturing, construction, and clean energy. We are championing equal pay, including issuing new regulations that advance pay equity and pay transparency for Federal workers and employees of Federal contractors.
This administration has put into effect what women have been asking for since the Women’s Revolution of the 1970s: access to affordable child care and paid parental leave. Biden signed legislation that provides new protections for pregnant and postpartum workers. Biden’s Child Tax Credit cut the number of children living in poverty in half, and provided breathing room for 65 million children and their families, but Republicans let it lapse; Biden is pushing to restore the credit.
To promote the health and wellness of women in America, Biden launched the Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis, led by Vice President Harris, to combat the high incidence of maternal mortality -- especially among Black, Native and rural women -- due to systemic inequities in quality health care, and expanded access to health care services for women veterans. Last fall, Biden launched the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research to change the approach and provide funding for new discoveries in women's health care.
Biden, who wrote the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 which helped change the culture of silence around the scourge of gender-based violence in America, finally overcame Republican obstruction to win reauthorization in 2022. The new VAWA increased funding to $700 million for 2023 alone -- the highest amount of funding ever to protect women from gender-based violence, and elevated enforcement.
Biden also implemented historic military justice reforms to better protect survivors and ensure that, in cases of gender-based violence, prosecutorial decisions are fully independent from the chain of command.
Last year, the Biden Administration released the first-ever National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, advancing a comprehensive Government-wide approach to preventing and addressing gender-based violence across the United States.
He also established the first-ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention in the White House, and consistently calls for an assault weapons ban, banning high-capacity magazines, universal background checks.
Globally, the Biden Administration is supporting initiatives that help expand access to child care, end gender-based violence, cut the digital gender divide in half, and promote women's leadership galvanizing more than $2.9 billion in investments to advance the economic status of women around the world and ensure women play a meaningful role in the industries of the future.
Notably, not a single Republican stood to cheer or support any of the measures Biden proposed for his “Unity Agenda” – like restoring the Child Tax Credit, capping out-of-pocket prescription expenses to $2000 for all, raising the tax rate on corporations from 15 to 21% to fund affordable child care, universal pre-K and paid family leave.
They did not even rise when he declared, “My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy, a future based on core values that have defined America -- honesty, decency, dignity, and equality; to respect everyone; to give everyone a fair shot; to give hate no safe harbor. My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are; it’s how old are our ideas. Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done.
“I see a future where [we’re] defending democracy, you don’t diminish it. I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms, not take them away. I see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy have to pay their fair share in taxes. I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence. Above all, I see a future for all Americans. I see a country for all Americans. “
See also:
FACT SHEET: IN SOTU, BIDEN CONTINUES THE FIGHT FOR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM, CALLS ON CONGRESS TO RESTORE PROTECTIONS UNDER ROE
Take Arms Against the Widening War on Women as Casualties Mount
BIDEN LAYS OUT VISION FOR FUTURE, BATTLE TO SAVE DEMOCRACY AND SOUL OF NATION & DRAWS CONTRASTS TO ‘MY PREDECESSOR” IN FIERY STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
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