Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told NBC’s Chuck Todd that although the country must “heed the word of the Supreme Court,” the Biden administration is still seeking avenues to make sure people “have access to the care that they need, including abortion care.”
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on June 24 to overturn Roe v. Wade, leaving the legality of abortion up to the states. So far, abortion is fully banned in five states and will soon be illegal in another eight, though there have been a number of court challenges throughout the nation.
In an interview that aired Sunday morning, Becerra reiterated the administration’s commitment. “The president in his first announcement said that he was tasking us at HHS to take on a number of issues, including medication abortion. And so he has asked us to seek as aggressive a strategy as we can. But unlike the previous administration, we do intend to respect the law,” he said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election through various legal and not-so-legal stratagems, which were all eventually shut down by the courts.
When asked by Todd on “Meet the Press” about clinics operating on federal land, Becerra said, “The difficulty is that simply because it’s an idea, doesn’t mean it can go out into practice. And so what we want to make sure is we can put things out into practice.”
He continued by saying that there are people in need of abortion services now, “so we’re going to do what we can to give people something as quickly as we can, even if it may not be everything they’d like.”
Last week, HHS launched a website to help people find contraceptives and access to abortion services.
Todd also asked Becerra about the concerns that some congressional Democrats have that the party isn’t fighting hard enough on abortion access.
“I tell them, ‘Give us some good ideas,’ Becerra said. “And I also would ask them to please pass a law. They have it in their power, if they can find the votes to actually codify the Roe decision, which is what we need more than anything else.”
He reiterated that the administration will do as much as they can, “but when you are stripped of a right, as the Supreme Court has just done to every woman of childbearing age, it is tough to overcome. It took 50 years for us to get as far as we did. Now we have to figure out how to do this. It will not be easy.”
