“The most important thing to be clear about is I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade in the law," President Joe Biden said at the NATO summit in Madrid.
President Joe Biden has called on the Senate to make an exception to its filibuster rule in order to codify Roe v. Wade and protect abortion rights at a federal level.
“The most important thing to be clear about is I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade in the law,” Biden said during a press conference at the NATO summit in Madrid “And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights, it should be we provide an exception for this, requiring an exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision.”
The filibuster rule refers to a Senate tradition that allows for unlimited debate. The Senate requires at least 60 out of 100 Senators agree to move a bill to a vote, meaning the opposition party can use a filibuster in order to delay or prevent a vote on a bill.
Biden’s push for the filibuster exception comes after the momentous Supreme Court decision last Friday that overturned the 1973 ruling that solidified the constitutional right to abortion, which Biden called “destabilizing” during a press conference Thursday.
Many fear that other landmark cases that hinge on the right to privacy, including 1965’s Griswold v. Connecticut that paved the way to legalized contraception and 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage, are now in jeopardy.
Since then, Biden and the Democrats have been facing intense pressure to find a pathway to guaranteeing abortion rights and a constitutional right to privacy.
Meanwhile, providers from healthcare clinics in the 13 states that had trigger laws in effect – meaning they would go into effect the moment the court struck down Roe v. Wade – are speaking out about delays or cancellations of scheduled appointments, regardless of a patient’s health circumstances.
Biden previously spoke out against the filibuster rule earlier this year, when Democrats pushed to standardize voting access measures across several states by introducing voting rights bills. Those efforts had then been blocked by Republicans using the filibuster rule, which is made possible as today’s senate is almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.
