BIDEN DIRECTS ADMINISTRATION TO LOOK INTO WAYS TO RESPOND

President Biden on Thursday said he is directing his administration to look into ways to protect abortion access for women in Texas after the Supreme Court refused to block the state’s law that bans almost all abortions.

Biden decried the 5-4 decision as an “unprecedented assault” on a woman’s right to an abortion under the precedent of Roe v. Wade and warned it will result in harmful consequences for millions of women in the nation’s second most populous state.

“By allowing a law to go into effect that empowers private citizens in Texas to sue health care providers, family members supporting a woman exercising her right to choose after six weeks, or even a friend who drives her to a hospital or clinic, it unleashes unconstitutional chaos and empowers self-anointed enforcers to have devastating impacts,” Biden said in a statement.

Possible executive action: The White House on Wednesday said the proper recourse to ensure abortion access would be for Congress to codify Roe v. Wade. But Biden on Thursday signaled his administration would take unilateral action where possible.

The president said he was asking the Gender Policy Council and White House Counsel to “launch a whole-of-government effort to respond to this decision, looking specifically to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to see what steps the Federal Government can take to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions as protected by Roe, and what legal tools we have to insulate women and providers from the impact of Texas’ bizarre scheme of outsourced enforcement to private parties.”