President Joe Biden on Wednesday is expected to sign another executive order protecting access to abortion rights, the latest action taken by his administration after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade earlier this summer.
This order, which the president is set to sign at the first meeting of the newly established Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access, is aimed at making it easier for women traveling between states to obtain access to the procedure, according to a senior administration official.
One of the directives of the order will allow states that have not banned abortion to apply for Medicaid waivers that would help doctors treat women who traveled from out of state for the procedure.
The order will also call on health care providers to comply with federal nondiscrimination laws and streamline the collection of key data and information on maternal health at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Biden’s order will direct Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to consider “all appropriate actions to ensure health care providers comply with federal non-discrimination laws so that women receive medically necessary care without delay.”
The president’s order is the second since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that granted the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide, in June.
The order comes one day after voters in Kansas overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative that would have allowed the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to restrict or ban the procedure.
It also comes a day after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department is suing Idaho over its abortion ban, the first legal action the federal government has taken against a state for restricting access to the procedure since the Supreme Court turned the issue back to state governments. Garland said the federal government was bringing the lawsuit, which seeks to invalidate the state’s “criminal prohibition on providing abortions as applied to women suffering medical emergencies.”
“Idaho’s law would make it a criminal offense for doctors to provide the emergency medical treatment that federal law requires,” Garland said in announcing the suit on Tuesday. “The Justice Department is going to use every tool we have to ensure reproductive freedom.”
Biden has vowed to use the full force of the federal government to fight for a woman’s right to choose, but he has admitted that his power to do so is limited without Congress acting to codify abortion protections.
“Congress should listen to the will of the American people and restore the protections of Roe as federal law,” Biden said in a statement after the Kansas vote. “While that is the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose, my Administration will continue to take meaningful action to protect women’s access to reproductive health care. We will continue to act where we can to protect women’s reproductive rights and access to care. And, the American people must continue to use their voices to protect the right to women’s health care, including abortion.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
