United States President Joe Biden said on Sunday that he is considering the declaration of a public health emergency to free up federal resources in an attempt to promote abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The Democratic leader's suggestion comes as the White House said that it does not seem like a "great option." Biden also offered a message to people angry about the court's ruling last month, urging them to keep protesting and making their point to lawmakers.
Public Health Emergency
The U.S. president, in remarks to reporters during a stop on a bike ride near his family's Delaware beach house, said that he lacked the power to force the dozen-plus states with strict restrictions or outright bans on abortion to make the procedure legal.
Biden said that Congress would need to codify Roe v. Wade, a process that would have a better chance in the future if voters would elect more lawmakers who support abortion access. The president said that his administration is trying to do a "lot of things to accommodate the rights of women" after the Supreme Court's ruling, as per Politico.
These include a potential public health emergency and Biden asking officials to "look at whether I have the authority to do that and what impact that would have." The director of the White House Gender Policy Council, Jen Klein, on Friday did not agree that the process would be effective.
She said that, when officials looked at a possible public health emergency, they discovered that it would not free very many resources. Klein noted that what was in the public health emergency fund was very little money, roughly a few tens of thousands of dollars.
According to CBS News, Biden's remarks come as Vice President Kamala Harris also expressed her support in urging voters to elect lawmakers who support abortion rights in the upcoming November elections.
Roe v. Wade
Harris noted that action was necessary to restore protections that were offered by Roe v. Wade, reiterating that there are roughly 120 days left before the elections. The vice president noted that the midterm elections will be about who serves in Congress, arguing that the United States needs a pro-choice Congress.
The vice president's remarks come after she sidestepped a question about whether or not Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch should be impeached because of claims they misled senators about their views on Roe v. Wade. Instead, she acknowledged that she "never believed them" when they testified at their confirmation hearings.
During Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing in September 2018, Harris, who was at the time serving as a Democratic senator from California, questioned him about his views on abortion. She also voted against Gorsuch in April 2017, now saying that she starts from the "point of experience of having served in the Senate. I never believed them."
Many critics of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade suggested that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch should be impeached because they misled senators about their views on long-standing precedents, the New York Post reported.
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