The battle for abortion rights ‘not over’ in the US, says Joe Biden

Joe Biden says today should have been the 50th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Washington:

The fight for abortion rights “isn’t over yet,” US President Joe Biden said Sunday, 50 years after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling guaranteed that right, before the court overturned itself. back in June.

“Today should have been the 50th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade,” the Democratic president wrote on Twitter, referring to the original ruling.

“Instead, MAGA Republicans” – supporters of former president Donald Trump, with the slogan Make America Great Again – “are at war with women’s rights to make health care decisions theirs.”

Biden added: “I have fought relentlessly to protect women’s reproductive rights – and I never will.”

However, his powers to influence abortion rights are relatively limited, with the fight now largely playing out at the state level.

The Supreme Court’s stunning reversal in June came after three Trump-appointed judges gave conservatives a majority on the high court.

Since then, about 20 Republican-led US states have passed legislation banning or severely restricting abortion rights.

In his series of tweets on Sunday, Biden said “women’s right to choose is non-negotiable” and he called on Congress to pass legislation codifying abortion rights introduced in the Roe case.

But with Republicans now controlling the House, the lower house of Congress, such legislation has little chance of succeeding.

Since June, Biden has had to deal with issuing relatively limited orders, such as authorizing Veterans Administration hospitals to provide abortions.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected on Sunday to mark Roe’s 50th anniversary by announcing several new rule changes.

For example, the White House wants to protect access to mifepristone-based drugs, which can be used to terminate a pregnancy in the first weeks.

(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)