President Joe Biden plans to sign an executive order on Friday directing various departments in his administration to consider new rules to bolster protections for reproductive rights, specifically access to contraception.
The order comes nearly a year after the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health to overturn abortion protections previously established in Roe v. Wade, upending reproductive rights for millions across the country.
That ruling, in which the majority opinion was authored by Justice Samuel Alito, rejected 14th Amendment protections for abortion rights that had been established for decades. Alito justified the ruling, in part, by claiming that “the Constitution makes no reference to abortion.”
“No such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Alito added, ignoring nearly half a century of precedent.
In his opinion, Alito asserted that the Court wouldn’t target birth control protections in the future, including those established by the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which used some of the same legal justifications as Roe to block states from denying people access to birth control. But in a concurring opinion to Alito’s, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that the Court should target such protections.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold,” Thomas wrote.
Thomas’s opinion led many to fear that protections for contraception access would soon be on the chopping block. While Biden cannot block a future Supreme Court ruling, the executive order handed down on Friday seeks to preserve and strengthen the right to attain contraceptive medication and devices.
The order directs federal agencies and departments to consider ways to require private insurers to expand options for accessing birth control under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
Among other provisions within the order, the directive from Biden will:
- Direct cabinet secretaries within the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services departments to “consider new guidance to ensure that private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act covers all Food and Drug Administration-approved, -granted, or -cleared contraceptives without cost sharing”;
- Order those cabinet secretaries to “streamline the process” for allowing people to access birth control, including “improv[ing] access to affordable over-the-counter contraception, including emergency contraception”;
- Ask those departments to consider new options for expanding access to family planning services for families on Medicaid and Medicare and
- Promote ways to expand research and data collection on contraceptive care.
“Contraception is an essential component of reproductive health care that has only become more important in the wake of Dobbs and the ensuing crisis in women’s access to health care,” reads an online fact sheet from the White House.
There are still immense barriers when it comes to accessing birth control in the U.S., including the requirement that people obtain a prescription in order to get contraception. Earlier this year, an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) called on the agency to end that requirement.
The panel’s advice to the FDA, which was unanimous, said the benefits of making birth control accessible (and affordable) outweigh any potential risks.
“The panel seems very comfortable with the limited number of risks from the medication itself,” said the panel’s chair, Maria Coyle.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.