President Joe Biden will soon put in place a presidential memorandum that seeks to guard access to abortion pills to mark close to 50 years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
As part of statements issued this past weekend while in Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris announced the coming memorandum, as reported by the White House.
“President Biden has emphasized the need to protect access to mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for over 20 years and accounts for the majority of all abortions in the United States,” explained a Fact Sheet issued by the White House.
The FDA issued an update to its policy earlier this past month which will allow all retail pharmacies to get certification to hand out abortion medications, which will include via telehealth. The Biden administration has been fighting against the efforts of some states that have tried to tell pharmacies that they should not get the FDA certification.
“The Presidential Memorandum directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), to consider new guidance to support patients, providers, and pharmacies who wish to legally access, prescribe, or provide mifepristone—no matter where they live,” explained the Fact Sheet.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is currently expected to collaborate with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security “to consider new actions to ensure that patients can access legal reproductive care, including medication abortion from a pharmacy, free from threats or violence.”
To go along with this new memorandum, President Joe Biden released a comment this past Sunday to highlight the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
“Today, instead of commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, we are acknowledging that last year, the Supreme Court took away a constitutional right from the American people,” Biden expressed in a release.
“Republicans in Congress and across the country continue to push for a national abortion ban, to criminalize doctors and nurses, and to make contraception harder to access. It’s dangerous, extreme, and out of touch,” he stated.
These efforts come following a landmark year for the pro-life movement that was able to secure the overturning of Roe v. Wade and abortion laws returned to the hands of the individual states this past June. Numerous states have since set in place additional abortion limitations, including a number such as Oklahoma which sports a close to total ban on abortion.
