US President Joe Biden promises to safeguard women traveling for abortions in light of Roe v. Wade. as he feared that some US states could take drastic measures to implement a total ban on the practice, US President Joe Biden guaranteed that the federal government would give protection to the women traveling for abortions.
After the Supreme Court reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision last week, 13 Republican-controlled states passed so-called “trigger laws” that forbid or severely restrict abortions. Women in those states who want an abortion are now compelled to fly to other states where they are still lawful.
Biden said he believes “people are going to be startled when the first state… tries to arrest a lady for crossing a state boundary to receive health services” on Friday during a virtual discussion on abortion rights with Democratic state governors.
“And I doubt that many people think it will occur. But it will happen, and it will signal to the entire nation that this is a huge matter that extends beyond; in other words, it impacts all of your fundamental rights,” he continued.
The president further stated that the government will safeguard women who must travel for the operation and assure access to tablets that result in abortions in places where it is outlawed.
A number of states have seen legislation introduced by pro-abortion groups in an effort to protect women’s right to abort.
Judges have already issued rulings prohibiting Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah from enforcing new restrictive abortion laws, while Ohio’s top court on Friday declined to bar the Republican-led state from enforcing an abortion ban.
A number of businesses have also offered to pay for employees to fly to another state for a legal abortion, including Amazon, Meta, Starbucks, and JP Morgan.
In order to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into law, Biden also informed the group that there were insufficient votes in the Senate to end the filibuster, a supermajority rule, according to Reuters.
He had suggested that senators do away with the filibuster, but the idea was rejected by aides to important Democratic lawmakers.
