Following the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, on Friday President Joe Biden will instruct the federal government to take measures to maintain access to abortion and the other reproductive care.
He will sign an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure the safety and effectiveness of medications licensed by the FDA for over 20 years while also increasing access to abortion services.
According to a White House fact sheet, the Department of Health and Human Services will take additional steps in order to expand access to a number of reproductive health services such as family planning, long-acting reversible contraception, and emergency contraception.
Abortion access, as well as the safety of patients and providers, will be a major focus of the administration’s outreach and public education efforts, as well as the deployment of mobile clinics at the border to treat patients from other states.
The order signed by President Biden falls short of a few actions activists have urged the administration to take. The measures include leasing federal property to providers of abortion and announcing a public health emergency to enable federal funding and many other resources available in the U.S for reproductive health care.
Biden administration is working to expand access to medication abortions in limited circumstances, to ensure providers have adequate training and resources, and has directed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid to take legal measures to protect family planning services, according to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
A 30-day deadline has been set by Biden’s directive for Becerra to provide a report on tn protecting access to contraception and abortion medication, as well as the availability of emergency medical care for women.
