What President Biden Can Do to Protect Abortion Rights

© 2021 Erin Schaff/Pool/NY Times/AP

Today marks the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, and it comes at a critical do-or-die moment for abortion rights. While a new administration took power just two days ago, one that is undoubtedly more supportive of abortion rights than the Trump administration, the remaining damage will take years, perhaps decades, to undo. With Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment, the Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative split. This could potentially spell the end of Roe v. Wade, but even if it doesn’t, it’s all but certain that this Court will allow serious and draconian restrictions on abortion to go into effect. 

The last four years––hell, the entire last decade––have been absolutely devastating for abortion rights. States passed more than 400 abortion restrictions, and six states now only have a single abortion clinic left. The election of Joe Biden over Donald Trump bodes better for abortion rights, but if anyone is hoping that his inauguration will win this fight alone, they are sorely mistaken. 

The Supreme Court cannot be relied on to be the bulwark against abortion rights erosions, and it will likely join the anti-choice offense in making access worse. It is a near-certainty that this Court will, if not overturn Roe, render it meaningless for an increasing number of people. What might that look like? Implementing a 20-week, 12-week, or possibly even a 6-week ban?  Restricting access to telemedicine abortion? Establishing other kinds of TRAP laws like requiring abortion clinics to adhere to standards of ambulatory surgical centers? 

But there are some very real steps that President  Biden can take to defend abortion rights in this, the first week of his presidency.

Repeal the Global Gag Rule

The Mexico City policy, also known as the “Global Gag Rule,” is an insidious policy that has,  since it originated in 1984 under the Reagan administration, reemerged every time a Republican president was sworn in. The Global Gag Rule bars U.S. family planning NGOs from receiving U.S. funding if they provide, counsel on, or advocate for safe abortion care, even in places where abortion is legal. But under the Trump administration, the Global Gag Rule became markedly worse. Not only did the Global Gag Rule apply to U.S. family planning NGOs, but to every single U.S.-funded NGO. No matter what health issue they worked on, whether it was treating malaria or increasing access to prenatal care, every NGO that received U.S. funding had to completely cut out every reference to abortion. 

Yesterday, on the first full day of the new administration, the White House announced that President Biden will indeed repeal the Global Gag Rule, a heartening sign of things to come.

Repeal the Domestic Gag Rule

The Trump administration instituted a sweeping change to Title X, the federal grant program that provides family planning funds for low-income folks. For the first time in Title X’s nearly 50 years of existence, health care providers were barred from providing or even discussing abortion care as an option with their patients if they wanted to continue to receive Title X funding. To be clear: Title X doesn’t fund abortions, it funds family planning. For organizations like Planned Parenthood and other independent reproductive health care providers, this policy meant choosing between providing patients with quality family planning while continuing to provide or counsel about abortion, or receiving federal funding. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that the Domestic Gag Rule slashed the Title X network of providers’ capacity by half, jeopardizing care for 1.6 million patients nationwide. 

Abortion is health care, and so is contraception. President Biden should send the Domestic Gag Rule the way of its global counterpart: to the bin of historical policy failures. 

Enforce the FACE Act

In the spring of 1994, less than a year after the first murder of an abortion provider in U.S. history, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which made it a federal crime to block entrance to a reproductive health care clinic. The FACE Act was a revolutionary piece of legislation that made it possible for clinics to have federal protection. If anti-choice protesters violated the law, they could be subject to severe penalties, including up to 10 years in prison. 

The FACE Act is still the law of the land, but there is one very real problem––its enforcement depends on the Justice Department. The FACE Act is useless if it isn’t enforced, and defending clinics clearly hasn’t been a priority for the Trump administration. That might be why harassment and threats of violence against abortion providers has surged during the last four years. Once approved by the Senate, Attorney General Merrick Garland should take abortion access seriously and enforce the FACE Act to the fullest extent of the law.

These are real steps that will improve people’s lives, and they can and should be taken immediately, But protecting abortion rights unfortunately depends on so much more than a few executive actions from the new president––it depends on all of us. We can take actions big and small in our own lives every day to support this most basic right. We can’t just cross our fingers and hope for Roe’s survival anymore. Instead, we must be bold and clear: abortion is health care and a basic right. It’s okay to have an abortion, and eradicating the stigma that surrounds it is critical to defending this right. 

There’ is no silver bullet to getting out of this crisis, but it begins with each of us taking action. Here are a few ways you can get involved right now:

• Volunteer as a clinic escort: Contact your local abortion clinic and ask them if they need clinic escort volunteers. (You can find your local abortion clinic though abortionfinder.org or at the Abortion Care Nework.)

• Donate to an abortion fund: Find an abortion fund in your area, or in a state hostile to reproductive rights, and become a monthly subscriber. Even if it’s just $5 a month, that’s money on which the fund can depend, and it goes directly to helping people access abortion care. 

• Contact your legislators: Make sure you know who each of your legislators are (federal, state, and local,) and contact them directly to ask where they stand on abortion rights. Ask them what they will do to protect and expand this right. 

The time for passivity has long gone. Just because we now have a Democratic president doesn’t mean that we can rest on our laurels. You have so much more power than you think you do. If abortion rights are going to be maintained and expanded, it will require each of us to do our part.