Biden says Texas law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy ‘blatantly violates’ constitutional right

By Donna Cassata,

President Biden called a Texas law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy a blatant violation of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion established under the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling.

In a statement Wednesday, the president said his administration is committed to Roe v. Wade and will “protect and defend that right.”

The Texas law that went into effect Wednesday makes no exception for incest or rape while allowing private citizens to file civil suits against individuals who help a woman seeking an abortion.

“This extreme Texas law blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century,” Biden said.

The president said the law will “significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes. And, outrageously, it deputizes private citizens to bring lawsuits against anyone who they believe has helped another person get an abortion, which might even include family members, health care workers, front desk staff at a health care clinic, or strangers with no connection to the individual.”

[With ban in effect, Texas abortion clinics will no longer terminate pregnancies after 6 weeks]

The Supreme Court failed to act on a request to block the Texas law. The court, with its 6-to-3 conservative majority, could still rule on the request. For now, however, most abortions are banned in the second-largest state in the nation, reflecting an effort in Republican-led states to severely restrict the rights of women to end pregnancies.

In a separate statement, Vice President Harris also decried the Texas law, describing it as an “all-out assault on reproductive health” that “effectively bans abortion for the nearly 7 million Texans of reproductive age. Patients in Texas will now be forced to travel out-of-state or carry their pregnancy to term against their will.”

The vice president said the “Biden-Harris Administration will always fight to protect access to healthcare and defend a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and determine her future.”