U.S. President Joe Biden condemned the US supreme court on Thursday, saying it had delivered “an unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional right”.
This statement was due to its decision not to consider a Texas law that effectively bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The law had been in effect for nearly 24 hours when the court delivered a 5-4 decision late on Wednesday that denied an emergency appeal from abortion providers.
In a statement, Biden pledged his administration would act to “ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions” as protected by the landmark Roe v Wade ruling in 1973.
Biden said the new legislation empowered private citizens in Texas to sue healthcare providers, family members supporting a woman exercising her right to choose after six weeks, or “even a friend who drivers her to a hospital or clinic”.
“It unleashes unconstitutional chaos and empowers self-anointed enforcers to have a devastating impact."
In the same vein, the president affirmed he would direct the Office of the White House Counsel to “launch a whole-of-government effort to respond to the decision”, including directing the federal justice and health departments to see “what legal tools we have to insulate women and providers from the impact of Texas’s bizarre scheme."
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