Tell the President and your Senators: An Executive Order on Reproductive Health is Just the Start
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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: Thank you for issuing your Executive Order Protecting Access to Reproductive Healthcare. It is a good start, but there’s still more you can do. I want you to declare a public health emergency, which would give HHS the power to increase funding to health care centers and coordinate efforts at the federal and state levels. I also want you to direct your administration to find ways to use federal land and money to circumvent the Hyde Amendment. I urge you to meet with the leaders of the eight civil rights organizations that wrote to you about countering the devastating impact of the end of Roe on marginalized communities. And finally, I believe you should speak directly to the American people in a presidential address explaining how the attack on abortion rights is just one aspect of a broader attack on democracy, and showing us just how you intend to fight for our civil liberties.
To your Senators: In 2013, the Supreme Court undermined 48 years of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v Holder. This year, it stripped away 49 years of the constitutional right to abortion, abetted by a Senate that has decided the arcane procedural rule of the filibuster is more important than the health and constitutional rights of all Americans. It’s time to challenge your ruthless Republican colleagues with floor votes regarding their willingness to force victims of rape or incest to carry those pregnancies to term and block life-saving care to people with ectopic pregnancies and other pregnancy-related medical emergencies. Please also work to reinstate the Child Tax Credit to help American families cope with the added financial burdens of forced pregnancy and birth.
Background
In his speech announcing his new Executive Order, President Biden acknowledged that the SCOTUS majority is “playing fast and loose with the facts” by misrepresenting the history of abortion rights in America and pointed out,“What we’re witnessing wasn’t a constitutional judgment, it was an exercise in raw political power.” That statement reminds us how the SCOTUS also played fast and loose with facts when it hobbled the Voting Rights Act after 48 years in 2013 via Shelby v Holder.
Reproductive rights groups, civil liberties organizations, and Congressional Democrats welcomed the measures in the Executive Order, with everyone saying it was a good start. However, we all hope to see more.
On the day the EO was issued, the leaders of eight renowned civil rights organizations, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, requested a meeting with President Biden. They wanted to discuss the EO’s implementation, the overwhelming impact of SCOTUS's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on people of color and other vulnerable people, and the undeniable connection between abortion access and other social justice issues, including voter disenfranchisement, policing abuse, criminal injustice, poverty, economic inequity, housing inequity, LGBTQ+ rights, the immigration crisis, food insecurity, medical bias, and environmental injustice.
The civil rights organizations’ letter of July 8 also added:
“Similarly, the attack on abortion rights cannot be separated from the broader attack on democracy that is being waged across our nation. Partisans are attacking voting rights and voter access in nearly every state in our union, fueled by fear of a majority-minority electorate, aided by a Supreme Court that has undermined federal voting rights protections and other fundamental rights, and abetted by a United States Senate that places fidelity to an arcane procedural rule over majority rule. Moreover, Justice Clarence
Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs directly threatened other critical individual rights that have been recognized over the last century. Thus, we know that this attack on freedom and rollback of long-held rights will not end with abortion rights.”
There has been a lot of discomfort with Biden’s exhortation to ‘vote in more Democrats’ to protect reproductive rights. But in 2020, it was alarming that while 12 seats held by Democrats and 23 seats held by Republicans were up for election, Democrats only gained 3 Senate seats. In many states, voters chose to remove Trump, but not those senators that enabled him, even with Roe on the line. After the election, Democrats had 48 Senate seats (including Manchin and Sinema) plus 2 Independents who caucus with them, and Republicans retained 50 seats. In 2022, 14 Democratic-held seats and 21 Republican-held seats are up for election. Republicans are defending two Senate seats in states Joe Biden won: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats are not defending any Senate seats in states Donald Trump won in 2020.
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California (PPAC) President and CEO Jodi Hicks said:
“In California, through the California Future of Abortion Council and our elected leadership, we will continue to lead the nation in how to best protect and expand access to abortion. We will continue to do all we can to ensure people can get the abortion care they want or need here in California. We look forward to federal leadership continuing to join us in the pursuit of equitable access to all health care, including abortion.” (Read more about our state in the references below, as well as ways to support access to safe abortion for people in other states.)
References
Solidarity: Support Access to Safe Abortion, Indivisible SF Blog , 6/28/22
ReproductiveRights.gov, launched 7/8/22
DOD Official: No Changes to Women's Essential Health Care, 6/24/22
18 Civil Rights, Reproductive Rights Organizations Request Meeting with White House on Abortion Access and Voting Rights, 7/8/22 Their Letter: WH Abortion
What President Biden’s executive order on abortion does not address, The Hill, 7/8/22
Planned Parenthood Federation of America Responds to Biden’s Executive Order on Abortion Rights , 7/8/22
Biden, in fiery speech, announces actions on abortion rights, The Washington Post, 7/8/22
ACEP // EMTALA Fact Sheet The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act
Opinion | Biden's new move on abortion hints at big red-vs.-blue battles ahead - The Washington Post, 7/8/22
Impassioned Biden signs order on abortion access | AP News, 7/8/22