The fight for abortion rights “isn’t over,” US President Joe Biden declared on Sunday, 50 years after a landmark Supreme Court decision guaranteed that right before the court reversed itself last June.
“Today should have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade,” the Democratic president tweeted, referring to the landmark decision.
“Instead, MAGA Republican officials” — supporters of former President Donald Trump, who campaigned on the slogan “Make America Great Again” — “are waging a war on women’s right to make their own health care decisions.”
Since the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision — a reversal made possible by the votes of three conservative justices appointed by Trump — 20 Republican-led states in the United States has passed legislation prohibiting or severely restricting abortion rights.
“I haven’t stopped fighting to protect women’s reproductive rights – and I never will,” Biden added.
During a weekend of competing demonstrations from both sides of the contentious national debate, 300 women marched for abortion rights in New York on Sunday, chanting slogans such as “My body, my choice,” similar to those heard at the time of the original 1973 Roe decision.
In Tallahassee, Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris joined the calls to protect abortion rights.
“How dare they?” she exclaimed before an audience of abortion rights activists.
She slammed recent abortion-limiting legislation passed by “extremists,” including in states like Florida, to rousing applause, adding, “We will not back down.”
‘Movement is recharging’
Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, is regarded as a rising star on the American right and has now outlawed abortions after 15 weeks, with no exceptions for incest or rape.
According to Planned Parenthood, an abortion advocacy group and women’s health provider, one in every three American women now lives in a state with strict abortion restrictions.
“While what is happening to patients and providers is devastating, our movement is recharging,” McGill Johnson, the group’s president, said at the event with Harris.
“Rain or shine, we will show up and fight. Each and every day.”
Biden’s own powers in this area are relatively limited, with the battle primarily taking place at the state level right now.
And anti-abortion groups, which have strong support for the religious right, have not backed down.
Thousands marched across the country on Friday to demand a nationwide abortion ban.
In a series of tweets on Sunday, Biden stated that “a woman’s right to choose is non-negotiable,” and he urged Congress to pass legislation codifying the Roe v. Wade abortion rights.
However, with Republicans now controlling the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, such legislation stands little chance of passing.
Since June, Biden has had to settle for issuing relatively minor orders, such as allowing Veterans Administration hospitals to perform abortions.
The White House also wants to safeguard access to mifepristone-based pills, which can be used to terminate a pregnancy in its early stages.
