Biden Administration Weighs Declaring Public-Health Emergency to Protect Abortion Access
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The Biden administration is considering declaring a public-health emergency to protect abortion access, one of a number of proposals under consideration to use executive orders to blunt the impact of the expected overturning of Roe v. Wade, the New York Times reported.
While the move would almost certainly be met with legal challenges, the declaration of a public-health emergency could ostensibly allow the Department of Health and Human Services to suspend the state-based medical licensing regime so that blue-state doctors could perform abortions in states where abortion is outlawed or restricted.
Administration officials including White House counsel Dana Remus, director of its gender policy council Jennifer Klein, and the director of its domestic policy council, Susan Rice, are reviewing possible executive actions.
The administration may also make proposals to prepare the Justice Department to litigate against states that attempt to outlaw abortion tourism and to confirm that state prohibitions on abortion cannot interfere with the distribution of FDA-approved abortion drugs, administration officials told the Times.
One privacy-centric idea being floated would have the Federal Trade Commission push developers of apps that track female menstrual cycles to warn users that states could conduct surveillance of their data to determine their status and stage of pregnancy.
Another particularly invasive proposal would bring abortionists to federal facilities like military bases, which are a sort of autonomous zone for state prosecution, inside states that have outlawed abortions.
The current panic within the Biden administration over abortion access comes after the surprise leak of a Supreme Court majority draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which would reverse the precedent in Roe legalizing abortion nationally.
The Biden administration is also looking for loopholes around the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits paying for abortions with federal taxpayer money, and has evidently asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel whether federal funds could subsidize travel expenses of out-of-state abortion seekers, the Times noted.
President Biden hinted last week during a TV appearance that his administration is exploring and exhausting all options to undercut the projected Supreme Court decision, which would return the abortion issue to the state legislatures to regulate in the absence of a federal mandate legalizing abortion.
“I don’t think the country will stand for it,” Biden told talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, referencing the reversal of Roe. “There’s some executive orders I could employ, we believe. We’re looking at that right now.”
Some Democratic-dominated states have already pitched or pushed through legislation to subsidize or protect pregnant women seeking abortions in their states.
For instance, Democratic lawmakers in California are working to fulfill Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to make their state an abortion “sanctuary,” with Planned Parenthood’s California affiliates spearheading the campaign. The state legislature is considering a package of 13 bills that would include paying for the travel costs and accommodations for out-of-state women seeking an abortion.
The Supreme Court is poised to release its final decision in Dobbs in the next two weeks before the end of the term. Security personnel and secret service have been on high alert as the six conservative justices have faced threats of violence and intimidation since the leak in May, including an attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh last week.
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly anticipating unrest in the next month. Law enforcement agencies have been investigating social media threats to burn down the Supreme Court and/or murder the justices and their clerks in response to the overturning of Roe, according to an unclassified memo from the DHS’ intelligence bureau.
