Tell the President and your Senators: Protect Reproductive Rights with Executive Action
Contact the White House via their comment line or web form.
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Call BOTH of your Senators.
Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
To President Biden: The reactionary activists on the Supreme Court are about to yank away half a century of the established right of all Americans to make their own decisions about planning their own families. We support and agree with our Senators in demanding that you use your executive power to protect reproductive justice in America. These four steps would be a great start:
Direct the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to drop the remaining FDA restrictions on mifepristone, including requirements that pharmacies obtain a special license to distribute it to patients.
Direct the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to aggressively enforce federal requirements that guarantee Medicaid beneficiaries the right to seek family planning services from a provider of their choice as specified by the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 1396a; 42 C.F.R. § 431.51).
Direct the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to require that all federal employees, military personnel and dependents, and persons in custody or being provided healthcare, be given paid time off and reimbursement for expenses necessary to access abortion.
Given the risks now presented by states that are criminalizing reproductive decision-making, direct the HHS Office for Civil Rights to require that websites or mobile applications that collect information related to reproductive health (such as period trackers) adequately and proactively protect personally identifiable information and other sensitive data.
To your Senators: We strongly support your letter of June 7 urging President Biden to use his executive authority to protect the right to abortion that we have had for 49 years. Please continue to pressure the Biden Administration to use a whole-of-government approach to protect Americans’ rights to bodily autonomy and the ability to plan our own families.
Background
Republicans have campaigned against abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. It inflamed the passion of voters and drove them to the polls. Anti-abortion sentiment also became quite violent, but that did not deter Republicans from using it to their advantage.
Republicans undermined reproductive rights at the state level for decades and continued to make nominating conservative judicial activists to SCOTUS a central issue in their presidential campaigns. This culminated in Mitch McConnell bending filibuster rules to declare new precedents as he needed them: to refuse to bring President Obama’s nomination of moderate Merrick Garland to the floor, and then to rush hard-right justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett onto the bench, candidates who all declared their respect for precedent during their nomination hearings, only to ignore it when seated.
Given the 50-50 Senate split that prevented the passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act to protect abortion access, 25 Democratic Senators wrote to President Biden on June 7 (linked in the references below) asking him for immediate executive action: “We urge you to immediately issue an executive order instructing the leaders of every federal agency to submit their plans to protect the right to an abortion within 30 days. Americans across the country are at risk of losing their fundamental rights, including their constitutional right to abortion protected for generations. They deserve no less than a whole-of-government response.”
Some Other Ways to Support People Seeking Abortions:
Clinics across the country are either facing legal challenges in their own states or seeing an influx of patients from other states – or both. Pick one and make a donation, offer to volunteer if you’re nearby, or ask how else you can help.
Abortion Access Front maintains an Adopt-a-Clinic list where you can see a clinic’s Amazon wish list and send something it needs, from office supplies to cozy socks for patients.
Support abortion funds. A lot of people don’t know about the grassroots organizations all over the country that help people pay for abortion care and everything it takes to access it, like child care or transportation. Spread the word that they exist, and if you can, donate to a fund in a state that’s restricting abortion access or one in a state that people are traveling to for care they can’t get at home.
Meet patients’ immediate needs (like a ride, a safe place to stay, or gas money) by volunteering with your local abortion fund or practical support group.
References
Support for abortion rights hits new high as midterm outlook is grim for Democrats, NBC News, May 15, 2022
The power and limits of using executive orders to protect abortion rights, Vox, June 11, 2022
The movement against abortion rights is nearing its apex. But it began way before Roe, NPR, 5/04/22
The Hyde Amendment Is Not an Excuse to Do Nothing to Protect Abortion Rights | The Nation, 5/12/22
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/griswold_v_connecticut_(1965)