The Biden administration is firing again amid intensifying Republican-led efforts to legislate and implement a nationwide abortion ban at 15 weeks following the Supreme Court docket’s historic resolution to overturn Roe v. Wade — the White Home framing that push as a GOP effort to remove girls’s rights.
After the Supreme Court docket overturned the landmark girls’s reproductive well being invoice and upheld the Mississippi regulation banning abortion after 15 weeks, some Home Republicans who oppose abortion rights are pushing legislation to implement a nationwide abortion ban at 15 weeks.
Such laws doesn’t at the moment have the 60 votes wanted to beat a filibuster within the Senate, however the push for such a ban is a notable effort provided that Republicans have a robust probability to take again management of the Home on this yr’s midterms. Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy expressed assist for the concept on Friday, and former Vice President Mike Pence recommended the courtroom in an announcement and in addition lent his assist to enacting a 15-week ban throughout the nation.
White Home Gender Coverage Council director Jen Klein lambasted such efforts Monday.
“Already Vice President Pence and GOP Chief McCarthy have introduced their assist for a nationwide ban on abortion, handed by Congress. No lady in any state – regardless of how pro-choice that state – would have the appropriate to decide on. Abortion could be unlawful in all places. The ultra-MAGA agenda on alternative has by no means been about ‘states’ rights.’ This has all the time been about taking away girls’s rights, in each single state,” Klein mentioned in an announcement offered completely to CNN.
As President Joe Biden and different prime officers have known as on Individuals to make their voices heard on the poll field in November, Klein framed the selection in stark phrases, providing a preview of White Home messaging on the matter.
“So let’s be clear, this goes considered one of two methods: We both have a Home and Senate that places Roe into federal regulation or a Home and Senate that push ultra-MAGA insurance policies that strip girls of their rights in all 50 states. Congress will both shield girls in all places or strip away their rights in all places,” she mentioned.
Klein has been among the many White Home officers main the White Home response to the Supreme Court docket ruling, forming an interagency working group and shaping the administration’s outreach to key stakeholder teams. Whereas Biden is touring overseas to key summits this week, Klein will probably be amongst prime administration officers’ efforts to talk publicly within the aftermath of the ruling this week.
The sharpened language comes as Biden has begun drawing contrasts in his midterm messaging, going after the “ultra-MAGA agenda” of the appropriate in comparison with his insurance policies. The President has outlined steps his administration is taking on the federal stage because the White Home continues to area stress from Democrats to do extra.
“This resolution should not be the ultimate phrase,” Biden mentioned in remarks from the lobby of the White Home Friday. “My administration will use all of its applicable lawful powers. Congress should act. And your vote? You may have the ultimate phrase. This isn’t over.”
The steps he specified by his remarks — increasing entry to remedy abortion and making certain girls are in a position to cross state traces to acquire abortions — had been a main focus of his workforce after dozens of conversations with abortion rights advocates and specialists over the previous two months.
CNN’s Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju, and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
