President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday cementing his administration’s commitment to “defend reproductive rights and protect access to safe and legal abortion.”
Unfortunately, the order is full of half-truths, fearmongering, and mischaracterizations about what’s going on with abortion in America today. If it’s implemented at all, the Supreme Court could eventually strike it down for being unconstitutional.
“I’m asking the Justice Department that, much like they did in the civil rights era, to do everything in their power to protect these women seeking to invoke their rights.” The order misconstrues the general state of abortion issues, including contraception, and asserts federal authority where it has none. For starters, the order pledges to safeguard access to “abortion and contraception” and coordinate federal “efforts to protect reproductive rights and access to healthcare.”
The federal government can’t safeguard access to abortion or protect reproductive rights absent legislative action — the Supreme Court just clarified that point. The idea that the federal government would strive to safeguard access to contraception is plain fearmongering: Access is not in jeopardy. Plus, it’s simply not within the purview of the federal government. The executive order also pledges to ensure the safety of abortion patients and providers, including “efforts to protect mobile clinics, which have been deployed to borders to offer care for out-of-state patients.” The order also seeks to convene private pro bono lawyers to offer support to people crossing state lines to get an abortion.
Let’s presume the administration is referring to “Just the Pill,” a mobile abortion clinic set up in states like Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, and Wyoming. Wyoming and Montana are likely to ban abortion, in which case, such clinics would be illegal. So far, they’re fine in Minnesota and Colorado, which are states not likely to ban abortion any time soon. The point is, the statement that the government is vowing to “protect” clinics is more virtue signaling than anything else. The commitment to providing attorneys funded by taxpayers, to people who want abortions even in legal states, would almost certainly be challenged in court.
The Biden administration is also calling on the Federal Trade Commission, an independent body, to consider taking steps to protect the privacy of people who are looking for information about abortion services. But even in states that have already banned abortion, it would be illegal under the First Amendment to constrain women seeking information. This is another fine example of the administration’s fearmongering.
Finally, per the administration’s policies, the order will create a new task force on reproductive healthcare. Perhaps Biden’s team has difficulty reading opinions, but the Supreme Court just stripped the federal government of its standing power to hold abortion in its hand. The abortion issue must be handled by each state individually or by Congress at a federal level. A reproductive healthcare task is not only meaningless but likely without jurisdiction or authority to institute change.
It’s clear in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision that liberals are unsure of how to react or what to do. They’ve had this issue in their grip for so long. But this executive order full of half-truths, fearmongering, and virtue signaling isn’t a great way to help citizens come to terms with the new law of the land.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She is an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
